MEXICO CITY — On the morning of Feb. 15, Evelyn Hernández walked out of Ilopango, a women’s jail in El Salvador, where she had been for nearly three years. Looking slightly dazed, she stepped through a crowd of cheering women carrying “Justice for Evelyn” banners outside the gates and into a waiting car.

Hernández, who had been serving a 30-year sentence for aggravated homicide after she had a stillbirth, had become malnourished in prison. But she finally had reason to believe her luck was turning: Her sentence had been annulled following an appeal from her legal team. Since then, the 21-year-old has gotten treatment for her physical ailments, gone back to school, and started a part-time job.

This week, she is heading back to a courtroom to be tried again for the same alleged crime. It’s a date that has been looming over her since she first regained her freedom, as the courts have been preparing to relitigate her case. Thursday’s proceedings come after the retrial began and was swiftly suspended in July.

Hernández is one of dozens of women in the Central American country, which bans abortion entirely, who have been accused of murder by the state after having miscarriages or stillbirths. Her case will be the first of its kind tried under recently inaugurated President Nayib Bukele, who has spoken out against the punishment of impoverished women who have suffered “spontaneous abortions,” putting the new administration’s stance on women’s rights to the test.

In El Salvador, “there is an intentional, systematic persecution of women, of poor women,” Paula Ávila-Guillén, director of Latin America Initiatives at the Women’s Equality Center, a New York City–based reproductive health advocacy organization, told BuzzFeed News.

Over the last decade, activists, lawyers, and international women’s groups have rallied behind Salvadoran women imprisoned for “obstetric emergencies.” Since 2009, more than 38 women have been released from jail, 16 remain incarcerated, and at least three — including Hernández — are in the middle of legal proceedings.

Before her release, Hernández had served 33 months in prison. According to Angélica Rivas, one of her lawyers, Hernández's first trial ignored scientific evidence and was determined largely by statements from witnesses called forth by the prosecution. This time, the defense is focused on highlighting the presence of meconium in the baby’s lungs, which can cause asphyxiation — and shows that the baby died of natural causes, said Rivas.

Raped by a member of a local criminal gang, Hernández kept quiet, aware that her case would have likely slipped through the cracks of a justice system virtually synonymous with impunity. Machismo is rampant in the country, which has one of the highest homicide rates in the world. More importantly, going to the police would have put Hernández's and her family’s lives in danger.

Hernández said she didn’t know she was pregnant until 32 weeks later, when she went to the latrine in her small home and delivered a stillborn baby. She started bleeding profusely and passed out.