section_path: Criticisms and concerns/Sexual abuse allegations
section_name: Sexual abuse allegations
paragraph_text: Sexual abuse allegations
  
  In 1998, Daniel Ortega's adopted stepdaughter Zoilamérica Narváez released a 48-page report in which she alleged he had sexually abused her from 1979, when she was 12, until 1990. Ortega and his wife Murillo denied the allegation. The case could not proceed in Nicaraguan courts, which have been consistently allied with Ortega, because he had immunity from prosecution as a member of parliament, and the five-year statute of limitations for sexual abuse and rape charges had expired. Narváez's complaint to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission was ruled admissible on 15 October 2001. On 4 March 2002, the Nicaraguan government accepted the commission's recommendation of a "friendly agreement". Narváez withdrew the accusations in 2008. Following the 2016 election, Narváez renewed her accusations and said that she had become an outcast in her family.
  
  In 2019 a documentary film Exiliada was released which revolves around Zoilamérica Narváez and her sexual abuse allegations against Ortega.
  
  There is also the case of Elvia Junieth who was allegedly abused by the president in 2005, and, according to the family, a girl was born from that relationship that Ortega did not recognize. Ernesto Moncada Lau, another of the assistants to the Sandinista president, appears on the birth certificate as the father of the minor. Her brother died in the Tipitapa Model prison in November 2021.