Pregnant Women Will No Longer Await Trial in Brazilian Jails

Expand Painted fingernails of an inmate in the Women's Prison of Brasilia, Brazil, August 3, 2011. © 2011 Reuters The word “victory” is rarely uttered alongside the word “prisons” in Brazil, where even pre-trial detainees are routinely held in overcrowded, unsanitary and violent cells. But this week, Brazil´s Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling that pregnant women, mothers of children up to the age of 12 and of persons with disabilities, accused of non-violent crimes, should await trial under house arrest not in detention. The ruling offers some relief to moms like Jéssica Monteiro, a…

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