A/HRC/35/30/Add.3 received reports of women who had miscarried and sought help in public hospitals and who had been reported to the police as having undergone illegal abortions and subsequently faced criminal prosecution. 30 Such legislation prevents women from seeking necessary medical care and assistance and contributes to maternal mortality. 27. The Special Rapporteur was informed that a draft law on voluntary interruption of pregnancy had been submitted to the House of Representatives. 28. Many women and girls had difficulties accessing reproductive health services, including contraception and voluntary sterilization, which might potentially lead to unwanted or life-threatening pregnancies. 31 The public health system should, by law, provide free contraceptives, but the Special Rapporteur received reports that women and girls, in particular those in poor areas, were often unaware of the possibility of obtaining free contraceptives and that contraceptives were not always available. 32 29. The Special Rapporteur was concerned that, every year, over the past five years, more than 3,000 girls under the age of 15 had given birth in Argentina 33 and the majority of the pregnancies were the result of rape or abuse. Pregnancy and motherhood at such an early age, in particular if unwanted, has profound consequences on the lives of girls, not least because pregnancy usually results in drop out from the education system and condemns the girls and their babies to a life of poverty and marginalization. F. Specific groups at risk 1. Indigenous women 30. While the Constitution guarantees some indigenous people’s rights, 34 the Special Rapporteur received reports that indigenous women often suffered multiple forms of discrimination, including on the grounds of their status as indigenous, as women and as lower income earners. Historically they have been excluded from development opportunities in northern Argentina and face challenges in educational attainment. For example, illiteracy among the indigenous population stood at 3.8 per cent, compared with 1.9 per cent for the rest of the population. 31. Studies showed that 47.7 per cent of indigenous people in Argentina did not have access to health insurance35 and indigenous women were discriminated against when trying to access medical services in health centres in some cities, including owing to the fact that they might not speak Spanish.36 Many indigenous women lived in isolated rural areas far from medical centres, where public transportation was scarce and even ambulances for emergencies were not always available. For the most isolated communities, external communication might be limited to certain times of the day, and when the electricity supply was off, there was no telephone signal to communicate or report an emergency, which 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 8 See, for example, the case of Belén, March 2014 in ANDHES and others, “Evaluation of compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in Argentina” (October 2016). Available at http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CEDAW/Shared%20Documents/ ARG/INT_CEDAW_NGO_ARG_25466_E.pdf. Human Rights Watch, “Argentina: Events of 2015” in World Report 2016. Available at https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2016/country-chapters/argentina. Human Rights Watch, “Protecting women from unsafe abortions in Argentina” (13 April 2011). Available at https://www.hrw.org/news/2011/04/13/protecting-women-unsafe-abortions-argentina. CLADEM, INSGENAR and Catolicas por el Derecho a Decidir, “Evaluation on the fulfilment of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women” (October 2016). Available from http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CEDAW/Shared%20Documents/ ARG/INT_CEDAW_NGO_ARG_25469_E.pdf. See article 75 of the Constitution of Argentina. Verónica Raffo, “In Argentina, a road that connects the present and the past of indigenous women”, blog (World Bank, November 2014). Available at http://blogs.worldbank.org/transport/argentinaroad-connects-present-and-past-indigenous-women. Argentina, Bureau of Indigenous Peoples, Report (21 April 2016).