Mothers sentenced to jail in Venezuela for crimes they did not commit

Naibelys Noel was separated from her son by her partner as a punishment. On Saturday, August 17, 2019, in the middle of a fight — sparked by the fact that she had decided to end the five-month-long relationship and leave him — he forced her to leave the house. While she was outside, José Teodoro González beat her 18-month-old baby to death. Noel found her dead son in the hospital in Santo Domingo, a town in the Venezuelan Andean Mountains.

Teodoro González left the baby at the health center and fled. He was caught a few days later, when he admitted his guilt. For this, his sentence was reduced. Since 2020, he has been serving a 15-year-long sentence for infanticide. However, Noel was detained the same day that she found her dead son in the hospital — the police took her away for interrogations related to the investigation.

Less than a month ago, Noel was given the maximum sentence possible in Venezuela’s judicial system — 30 years in prison — for supposedly committing the crimes of “intentional homicide,” “complicity,” “neglect” and “omission.” According to human rights organizations, she has been criminalized simply for being a mother.

Noel’s case has sounded the alarm among women’s movements, including the Coalición Feminista contra la Violencia Judicial, a local organization that fights judicial violence against women. This group has observed that there is a misogynistic pattern within the Venezuela judicial system that results in disproportionate sentences being imposed on women. The organization — made up of women released from prison as well as members of different human rights groups — has focused on tracking cases of mothers prosecuted for the death or injury of their descendants, when they didn’t cause them harm. Such cases involve mothers being sentenced for complicity and imprisoned in the country’s five women’s prisons. In Venezuela, the activists explain, Noel’s case is the first time that the maximum sentence has been applied for crime of omission — the failure to perform a legal duty when one has the capacity to do so. There are many cases similar to hers among the population of female prisoners in Venezuela and across the region. Hence, Venezuelan NGOs have allied with an anti-prison feminist network across Latin America and the Caribbean.

With delays and irregularities, the trial took place. Noel’s lawyers were convinced that there was no way that their client would go to prison, as there was no evidence against her. However, they were wrong. “The judge and the prosecutor focused everything on gender stereotypes,” explains lawyer ván Toro — a member of the Human Rights Observatory at the University de Los Andes — who is assisting in the case. “They [accused her] of giving her son to the murderer on a silver platter, for being in love [with a criminal]... that she was a bad mother. Those were the conclusions of the prosecutor. The judge imposed a 30-year sentence on her, because she had allegedly neglected the child.”

The defense attorney points out that, by admitting his responsibility, the murderer himself had declared Noel’s innocence. However, trial hearings haven’t been recorded for several years in the courts of the Venezuelan state of Mérida. This is due to a lack of resources that has plagued the entire Venezuelan judicial system. There was no record of testimony that could have been used in Noel’s case.

Toro points out that, during her trial, it was possible to prove that she was also a victim of the murderer, who used torture and physical, psychological and sexual violence during the time he lived with her. Yet none of this was taken into consideration by Judge Lucy Terán, who accepted all the accusations brought forth by Geraldy Gavidia, the prosecutor.

Noel is from the town of Cabudare, in the state of Lara, located about 200 miles away from where José Teodoro lived. From a poor household, she had a baby at the age of 21. After she met Teodoro, they lived together in the town of Santo Domingo for a month. She didn’t like the way he treated her.

“And what always happens, happened. The man promises to change and, in a situation of great vulnerability, the woman returns. Naibelys looked for a way to become independent from her family by leaving with him, just like many young women in Latin American neighborhoods, who look for a man to get out of their family conflicts,” says a coalition activist who was in jail with Noel. According to what Noel told her, Teodoro would cut up her clothes so that she couldn’t go out in public, took her phone away and kept her locked up in the house, which was located on a street with a single entrance. It was a form of kidnapping.

Her son’s murderer was also violent. On at least two occasions, she tried to report this and couldn’t get help — the authorities asked for forensic evidence that she couldn’t provide. Relatives of José Teodoro also reported him to the police, given his violent actions against the woman and her child.

Noel’s case was presented at the last meeting of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in Geneva, Switzerland, by the University de Los Andes’ commission against gender violence. Amnesty International has also denounced that Noel was subjected to vicarious violence — any type of violence exercised against sons and daughters with the purpose of causing psychological damage to the mother — and that she has been revictimized during her judicial process.

“This case is an example of how the authorities don’t fulfill their duty to prevent, address and punish violence against women, who often suffer vicarious or family violence. In Venezuela, vicarious violence is not classified as a crime, despite the existence of cases that show [how it is clearly being committed]. This is the type of gender violence carried out by aggressors who — with the intention of inflicting more suffering on women — cause serious harm to their children and even death,” read a statement by Amnesty, released when the sentence was handed down on July 19, 2023.

The activists who have been following Noel’s case point out that, since the murder occurred, the authorities have condemned her. Her police report photo was released by Douglas Rico — director of the Criminal and Criminal Scientific Investigation Corps — who, barely two days after her arrest, claimed that the case had been resolved. He told the media that “Naibelys allowed her partner and stepfather of her [18-month-old son] to constantly mistreat him, to the point of causing him serious injuries on other occasions.” Four years later, she was sentenced under that same premise.

In Santo Domingo, the case did not go unnoticed, but the community also reproached the mother for what happened. A local resident pointed out that this attitude is an example of machismo culture, as did certain media outlets.

Noel’s defense is preparing for a long road of appeals. The feminist coalition will also take the case to international bodies to achieve justice, while they make progress in researching the situation of other mothers who have been sentenced. In the prison where Noel is being held — the Andean Region Penitentiary Center, located in San Juan de Lagunillas — there are at least three other similar cases. “We’re watching with horror, as there’s a [disproportionate number of these] crimes when it comes to women. We see a lot of improvisation in the judiciary and the influence of neoconservative groups in the country’s courts,” says one of the coalition activists. “In the case of Naibelys, there’s been an attempt to create a kind of ontological responsibility — something that doesn’t exist in law. You can’t punish someone for being a mother, because then the child’s father would be just as responsible as she is.”

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