9-Year-Old Mother Is Really At Least 12, Impregnated By Her Stepfather
A 9-year-old mother in Mexico isn’t really as young as officials first reported — and it’s not her 17-year-old boyfriend who got her pregnant either.
News broke last week that a 9-year-old girl gave birth in the Mexican state of Jalisco, drawing international headlines and shock at how someone so young could become pregnant. It turns out it wasn’t true, exactly.
Jalico state officials cleared up some inconsistencies about the case, The Associated Press reported. They found that the girl, named Dafne, was really somewhere between 12 and 13, and wasn’t pregnant by her 17-year-old boyfriend, as initially reported. Instead the officials believe it was her stepfather who impregnated her.
Officials were originally searching for the 17-year-old boyfriend to bring him up on charges, but a DNA test revealed that the young girl’s 44-year-old stepfather was the one who got her pregnant.
The state prosecutor, Jorge Villasenor, told Mexican newspaper Milenio that the case was unclear from the beginning. The young girl was not able to understand the significance of her actions, and authorities weren’t sure if it was a case of rape or sexual abuse at first.
“Although mother and baby have both been discharged, the hospital has said it will closely monitor the situation, due to the mother’s age,” Villasenor said.
A separate anthropological study found that the girl’s true age was between 12 and 13, not 9 years old as her birth certificate said.
Before her true age was revealed, authorities announced that the 9-year-old girl was looking after the 5 lb 15 oz baby last week in the hospital after giving birth, The Mirror of London reported at the time.
