Until recently, Nicaraguan women had something to celebrate on March 8, International Women’s Day. Nicaraguan women have fought for years to protect women’s rights, not to restrict them, and decades ago the government eliminated some of the sexist laws that discriminated against women.

A year after elections in Nicaragua returned Daniel Ortega to power, scores of pregnant women have died, many as a consequence of a new law that prohibits doctors from providing lifesaving treatment.

Nicaragua’s blanket ban on abortion, which criminalizes life-saving medical treatment, has had a devastating impact on women’s health and lives, Human Rights Watch said today in the first-ever report on the human rights consequences of the ban, which was enacted in November 2006.

Nicaragua’s new blanket ban on abortion – even in cases of rape, incest or life-threatening pregnancy – violates international human rights standards and poses a grave risk to women, Human Rights Watch said today in an open letter to the country’s Supreme Court.

The congressional vote which today eliminated all exceptions to the general penalization of abortion in Nicaragua constitutes a direct threat to human rights, said Human Rights Watch. The new penal code penalizes abortion even when it is carried out to save the pregnant woman’s life, or when the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.

The U.S. House of Representatives will likely vote before the end of this week on the U.S.-Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA). The House should reject the accord for falling short on workers' human rights because it does not require countries to protect women workers from discrimination or to have laws that meet international labor standards.

This week the United States and Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua have been conducting the sixth of nine negotiating rounds for a U.S.-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). The United States has already proposed labor rights provisions for CAFTA similar to those in the U.S free trade agreements with Chile and Singapore. But those are the wrong models.