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Woman rescued after being imprisoned for 16 YEARS!

She was held in squalid conditions by her own family for nearly two decades...
Civil Police of Ceará

A woman has been rescued after being held prisoner for 16 years because she fell pregnant, it has been reported.

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Maria Lúcia de Almeida Braga, now 36, was forced to live in a filthy 3×3-metre room with no toilet or electricity on her family’s Brazilian property after falling pregnant, aged 20.

It’s believed she was freed earlier this month after an anonymous tip-off led police to the property, where Maria was kept naked and fed twice a day like an animal.

‘It was a three-by-three room with only one hammock. It was very fetid, damp and very dirty. She rushed over to the officers with open arms when she saw us,’ a police spokesperson said.

Maria’s brother, João de Almeida Braga, 48, has been arrested for imprisonment and mistreatment. Maria’s father was also arrested, but it is believed he will not be prosecuted because of his ill health.

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