Libros & Chisme – What Happened to Belén by Ana Elena Correa
August 14 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
The Codex at the Writer's Block
519 S 6th St Ste 100, Las Vegas, NV 89101
Libros & Chisme – What Happened to Belén by Ana Elena Correa
About the Event
Join us at The Writer’s Block for Libros & Chisme, a book club hosted by BMI associate director of development Kim Treviño-Kiraly.
Travel with us around the world as we discuss the brilliant books being written by Latin American authors — with conversations guaranteed to be better than your comadres’ chisme. Whether you’re a fast reader or never quite finish a book, this club welcomes everyone with an interest in Latin American literature. Juntos en la misma página, sin fronteras!
About the book: In 2014, Belén, a twenty-five-year-old woman living in rural Argentina, went to the hospital for a stomachache—and soon found herself in prison. While at the hospital she had a miscarriage—without knowing she was pregnant. Because of the nation’s repressive laws surrounding abortion and reproductive rights, the doctors were forced to report her to the authorities. Despite her protestations, Belén was convicted and sentenced to two years for homicide.
Belén’s imprisonment is a glaring example of how women’s health care has become increasingly criminalized, putting the most vulnerable—BIPOC, rural, and low-income—women at greater risk of prosecution. Belén’s cause became the centerpiece of a movement to achieve greater protections for all women. After two failed attempts to clear her name, Belén met feminist lawyer Soledad Deza, who quickly rallied Amnesty International and ignited an international feminist movement around #niunamas—not one more—symbolized by thousands of demonstrators around the globe donning white masks, the same kind of mask Belén wore when leaving prison. The #niunamas movement was instrumental in pressuring Argentine president Alberto Fernández to decriminalize abortion in 2021.
In this gripping and personal account of the case and its impact on local law, Ana Correa, one of Argentina’s leading journalists and activists, makes clear that what happened to Belén could happen to any woman—and that we all have the power to raise our collective voices and demand change.