A five-year-old Peruvian child was taken to the hospital on a quiet day in May 1939, complaining of an enlarged belly. The doctors originally suspected a tumor, but soon found out the devastating, shocking reality that went down in history: She was pregnant.
Born on Sept. 23, 1933, in a small village in Peru, Lina Medina‘s pregnancy shocked and broke the hearts of the entire world after it was discovered during a doctor’s visit in Pisco. According to Peruvian law, the mere fact of Medina’s pregnancy implied that she had been raped at some point before her fifth birthday. She was one of nine children born to Tiburelo Medina, a silversmith, and his wife, Victoria Losea, and Tiburelo was soon arrested on suspicion of child sexual abuse.
Six weeks after the diagnosis, on 14 May 1939, Medina gave birth to her son Gerardo by cesarean section, necessitated by her small pelvis. The surgery was performed by Dr. Gerardo Lozada of the Lozada family, Dr. Busalleu, and Dr. Colareta, providing anesthesia. Medina was 5 years, 7 months, and 21 days old and became the youngest confirmed mother in history.
The pictures taken after her delivery show her lying emotionless, carrying the weight of something sinister that she could tell nobody. Quoting the reports in Peruvian paper La Crónica, the San Antonio Light newspaper in its July 1939 edition revealed that an American film studio had sent a representative “with authority to offer the sum of $5,000 to benefit the minor” in return for filming rights. However, the offer was rejected. (via Snopes)
Some films of the chilling case were made by Medina’s doctor, Lozada himself, for “scientific documentation.” He also addressed Peru’s National Academy of Medicine with those films, while Dr. Escomel reported her case in the medical journal La Presse Médicale. They revealed that Medina had fully mature sexual organs from precocious puberty, and her menarche had occurred at a mere eight months of age.
What happened to Gerardo, and who was the father?
Gerardo, named after Dr. Lozada, was raised in the Medina family, believing Medina to be his sister. It wasn’t until he was 10 that he found out the truth. Some time later, Dr. Lozada was allowed to take custody of Gerardo at his home in Lima, where he also subsequently employed Medina at his clinic as a secretary. Though both Medina and her son Gerardo now lived in Lima, she only saw Gerardo occasionally.
Finding out the identity of the man who raped and impregnated Medina became a pressing issue for the police, since she never spoke about it. While her father was arrested on suspicion of sexual abuse, he was later freed due to no concrete evidence. Medina eventually married a man named Raúl Jurado and had a son with him in 1972.
Gerardo, on the other hand, lived a separate life and died in 1979 at the age of 40 from bone marrow disease. Till the time Gerardo was alive, DNA testing hadn’t become popular or completely developed. To this day, his father’s identity remains a mystery. Medina is now 92 years old and refuses to speak about the haunting ordeal that happened when she was four.
