Her husband threw boiling atole at her baby and she killed him to defend him; she was arrested, but the authorities released her last Tuesday, in Guatemala.
This is María del Carmen Chay, a 20-year-old woman, accused of murdering her husband for burning her baby.
The events occurred on October 12 in the city of Huehuetenango, Guatemala, when the young woman was selling corn.
During María del Carmen’s hearing, the Artisan Collective and her lawyer revealed that it was her partner, a man named Francisco Ventura Tiño, who burned her nine-month-old son, throwing a pot of boiling atole at him.
Due to the severity of his injuries, the little boy remained hospitalized for several days and is currently recovering.
The defender commented that, after the attack against her baby, María del Carmen stabbed her partner repeatedly, causing two wounds to her chest and one to her neck, which ended her life.
The injuries were inflicted with the knife that the woman uses to cut lemons.
The Artisan Collective reiterated that Chay acted in self-defense, to prevent the man from attacking his other two children, whom he wanted to throw on a hot charcoal grill.
Similarly, the lawyer argued that the woman suffered various types of violence during her relationship with Francisco Ventura Tiño; She “began her relationship with an aggressor six years older than her at age 14, she had her first daughter at 15,” explained the lawyer.
In addition, the defense declared that the young woman was a victim of economic violence because she was “the only one who would have been working to support the home and feed her children, while the man took the money from her sale.”
After hearing the arguments presented by the woman’s defense, Judge Carlos Toledo determined that María del Carmen acted under legitimate defense against her partner in the face of the blows and harassment received. Therefore, she regained her freedom and the case was closed.
The event was celebrated by various feminist groups that supported the innocence of the detainee.
