MASAYA – Four years after the women's movement rallied to defend the life and rights of an impregnated 9-year-old rape victim known as “Rosita,” the same tragedy has repeated itself, only this time it's the women's movement that's being called to blame.

The Ministry of the Family, Adolescence and Youth (Mifamilia) has warned that if an investigation reveals that the Women's Network against Violence was involved in covering up subsequent sexual abuse of Rosita, the women's organization could be processed criminally as accomplices.

Rosita, now 14, is again pregnant after allegedly being raped by her stepfather, Francisco Fletes, who is facing criminal charges in Masaya. It was also recently made public that she already has a 19-month-old child, which some also suspect is by her stepfather's doing.

Rosita's mother filed a police report July 31, accusing her husband of raping and impregnating her daughter. She claims she found out about the abuse 10 days earlier, when Rosita confessed the relationship to her during an argument. Rosita allegedly told her mother that Fletes was now her man, and to leave them alone.

Police arrested Fletes in Masaya July 31, several hours after the police report was filed. But due to a technical mistake in the prosecutor's accusation, a judge released Fletes Aug. 2.

“I didn't know this was the Rosita case when the police brought him in,” an exasperated judge Leonel Alfredo Alfaro told The Nica Times this week in his office in Masaya. “The police just brought in some guy in handcuffs, with no shirt, no legal defense and an incomplete accusation. I followed the letter of the law, and now I'm being crucified by the press and society.”

The prosecutor later fixed the mistakes in his accusation and re-submitted it to the judge, who then issued another warrant for Fletes' arrest. Fletes fled but was caught by police Aug. 17 and brought back to the Masaya tribunals to face charges.

The resurgence of the Rosita scandal, meanwhile, has unfolded in the media as a sordid tale of abuse and deception, with questions being raised about who knew what was going on, and when.

Leaders of the women's movement, which has protected Rosita and her family for years, insist that they had no idea Fletes was abusing her until the mother found out July 21.

Some feminists, however, now fear that the Sandinista government will try to use the Rosita case as an opportunity to weaken the women's movement as payback for its support of the sexual-abuse charges filed against Daniel Ortega in 1998 by his stepdaughter, Zoilamerica Navaez.

“This could be their revenge,” said feminist leader Sophia Montenegro.

A Rose By Any Other Name

Innocence Stolen: The girl known to the world as “Rosita,” pictured here in a drawing she did of herself back in 2003.

The tragic story of Rosita first made international headlines in February 2003, when it was discovered that the young daughter of a Nicaraguan migrant couple living in Turrialba, Costa Rica, had been raped and impregnated at the unlikely age of nine.

A Costa Rican man was fingered for the crime and picked up by police, as Rosita's mother and stepfather sneaked her back to Nicaragua for a therapeutic abortion (TT, Feb. 14, 2003).

The situation became a cross-border scandal between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, with the Costa Rican press accusing the Nica stepfather of rape, and the Nicaraguan press blaming the Tico campesino, who was eventually released from jail due to lack of evidence against him.

The women's network in Nicaragua immediately took Rosita under its wing and arranged for her to have an abortion at a private clinic in Managua. Doctors said her body was too small to complete the pregnancy, and warned that waiting much longer to abort would pose a serious risk to her life.

Rosita became the poster child for therapeutic abortion at a time when the issue was a hot political debate between right-wing religious interests and human-rights groups here.

After the abortion was conducted, the Catholic Church summarily excommunicated everyone involved in the process, sparking an international solidarity campaign where more than 28,000 activists signed a petition asking the Vatican to excommunicate them, too (TT, March 7, 2003).

The women's network continued to protect Rosita after the media frenzy died down. She received counseling and her location and identity were always protected.

But there came a time when the family eventually rejected continued therapy, and leaders of the women's movement said they had to accept the family's wishes.

Another part of protecting her privacy meant not notifying anyone when Rosita became pregnant again two years later, at the age of 11, and decided to give birth. The women's movement was told at the time that Rosita had been impregnated by her school-age boyfriend, and decided to keep the issue quiet to save her from facing the hot blaze of another media blitz.

The true identify of the father, however, remains a mystery; Fletes denies it's him and Rosita reportedly won't give a straight answer, or doesn't know.

Marta María Blandón, of the Feminist Movement, said that there was never any earlier evidence that Fletes had abused Rosita, and she doubts that the recent turn of events means that it was he who originally raped Rosita back in Costa Rica in 2003.

“I doubt very much that the family back then would have been able to develop such a Machiavellian and elaborate lie to fool psychologists, prosecutors, medics, sexual experts and everyone else who evaluated them at the time,” Blandon said. “There was no evidence that the parents were anything but supportive and caring back then.”

When Rosita got pregnant again in 2005, the girl told her mother that the father was her 13-year-old boyfriend from school, and that it had been a consensual act of love. Since the family wanted to keep the second pregnancy quiet, Blandon said the women's movement respected their wishes.

That decision, however, now appears to be backfiring on the women's movement, at least in certain sectors of the public's eye.

Pro-life groups are accusing the women's network of covering up years of abuse so as not to blacken the memory of its initial victory for the abortion movement.

And even more progressive elements of society seem to be questioning the judgement of the women's network. An Internet poll published this week on the Web page of the left-leaning El Nuevo Diario revealed, as of Monday, that more than 60% of readers thought that Rosita should be in the custody of Mifamilia, while only 28% said she should be under the protection of the women's network.

On Aug. 14, Mifamilia ordered that Rosita be taken from the private shelter run by the women's network and placed in a state-run shelter.

Mifamilia's Martín Vargas, who is overseeing the Rosita case, told The Nica Times this week that the adolescent is now under government care, where she has protection and is being fully evaluated by team of ministry doctors and psychologists.

Police in Masaya, meanwhile, claim the Rosita case is not isolated. In the past two months, there are four similar cases just in Masaya of young girls getting raped by their father or stepfather, according to police.

“There are lots of Rositas,” assistant police commissioner Paula Vásquez told The Nica Times this week.

Second Blow

The second coming of the Rosita scandal, which four years ago was hailed as a major victory for the cause of the women's movement, now appears to be another blow to the organizations' efforts.

In November, 2006, Sandinista lawmakers made good on their party's new alliance with Catholic Church leaders by voting to outlaw therapeutic abortion – the same medical procedure that saved Rosita's life in 2003.

Debate within the women's movement over how to organize against what it perceived was a reactionary government onslaught against women's rights, eventually led to a rift in the movement late last year.

Now divided, feminist leaders are concerned that the Sandinista government is attempting to use the case of Rosita to turn the screws by completely discrediting the work of their organizations, which have long been a thorn in the side of President Ortega and First Lady Rosario Murillo.

“This is not about protecting Rosita,” said Montenegro, of the Autonomous Women's Movement, referring to the government taking the girl into state custody last week. “This is about punishing the women's network for the Zoilamerica case, which was a similar accusation of rape by the stepfather.”

During the sexual-abuse charges against Ortega, Murillo stood by her husband and demonized the women's movement for manipulating her daughter. The case against Ortega here eventually fell flat due to statute of limitations, but the story didn't entirely end there.

“Murillo still thinks she has a debt to settle with the women's movement for its support of Zoilamerica,” Montenegro said.

Montenegro added that she thinks this is also part of a larger, systematic strategy by the Sandinista government to weaken all forms of civil society and replace it with party-controlled organizations known as Councils of Citizen Power (NT, Aug. 10).

Future Fight

Despite the recent scandal, Blandon insists that it doesn't negate the validity of the women's movement, or its efforts to save Rosita in 2003.

“In that moment we did what we had to do, we had to save her life,” Blandon said. “I think the case led to lots of important reflection and served to raise awareness in society.”

Now, the fallout from the most recent Rosita scandal could serve to unite and strengthen the women's movement once again, Blandon predicts.

“At this moment, we have more in common than not,” she said. “This is about defending a just cause and recognizing the work we do to defend women's rights. In the end, the differences between us are not substantial.”

Blandon added that any attack against the women's movement will lead to a new “synergy” between the different feminist groups, of which she estimates there are more than 100.

“I think we will close ranks,” she said. “This is about a cause that is much more important than any one organization.”