Cases of domestic violence have risen worldwide during the coronavirus pandemic, as isolation and confinement prompted sexual and gender-based violence. But in this extremely Catholic country, even women who have been the victims of rape are forbidden to have an abortion. Abortions, which have always been a taboo topic in Guatemala, continue to be considered a criminal offense; many women end up in prison for years for having had one. DFC will provide a $19.5 million loan to Destino Desarollos to help build approximately 1,800 homes and associated infrastructure in Guatemala’s secondary and tertiary cities of Quetzaltenango, Coban, and Fraijanes, which have high rates of out-migration. This project will create safe and affordable family housing and support hundreds of local jobs within the community. The Department of Justice, with support from the Department of State, will create a regional task force to identify, disrupt, and prevent migrant smuggling and human trafficking operations.
By using this website, you agree to our Terms and Conditions, California Privacy Statement, Privacy statement and Cookies policy. AMC co-designed the study, led all training and research activities, analyzed and interpreted the data and drafted the manuscript. AIM co-designed and co-implemented all research activities, entered the data, and provided critical insights in data interpretation. MRZ co-designed the study, participated in discussions on the interpretation of data, and revised the manuscript. DP co-designed the study, participated in early discussions on the interpretation of data, prior to his passing away on January 27, 2016.
The subsequent military rulers reversed the land reforms that benefited the poor farmers, triggering 36 years of armed conflict between the military and left-wing guerilla groups and cost more than 200,000 lives. During the conflict, an army of around 40,000 men and a civilian defence force of approximately one million were trained to commit acts of violence against women.
- “Complications in pregnancy and childbirth are the second highest cause of death for 15- to 19-year-old girls globally”.
- For Xiloj Cui, having a separate judicial case which focused solely on sexual violence served to show how this kind of abuse was used as a weapon of war and that reparational justice can still be made for these survivors.
- Repressed for centuries following the Spanish conquest, indigenous people accounted for more than 80 percent of the 200,000 people killed in Guatemala’s lengthy civil war that ended in 1996, according to the United Nations-backed Truth Commission, which investigated human rights violations.
- But violence against women, and domestic violence in particular, is a powerful and often overlooked factor in the migration crisis.
- Guatemalan society, still terrorized by repression, found its voice in the voices of the women who protested in the streets demanding the return of their relatives, and also demanding the justice that many others were too afraid to express.
The large proportion of indigenous women who use institutional prenatal care suggests that further integrating the three services may increase their use of institutional delivery and modern contraceptives. Adding speakers of local Mayan languages to the staff of health facilities could also help increase use. Guatemala remains a strongly polarised country with a long history of human rights violations, including a 36-year civil war ( ) in which acts of genocide were committed. Endeavours to promote and protect human rights frequently give rise to stigmatisation and accusations of left-wing political activism from right-wing sections of society.
Today women in Guatemala are killed at nearly the same rate as they were in the early 1980s when the civil war became genocidal. Yet the Guatemalan women current femicide epidemic is less an aberration than a reflection of the way violence against women has become normalized in Guatemala.
These Guatemalan Women Save Mothers And Babies Why Are They Treated So Badly?
Four in five are poor, and they are nearly three times as likely to live in extreme poverty than others in the country, according to the World Bank. The Sepur Zarco case is about justice, as shaped by women who endured untold horror and loss, and today they are demanding to experience that justice in their everyday lives. Only one of the 11 surviving abuelas who fought for the groundbreaking case has a home in Sepur Zarco. Most of the others live in the surrounding communities of San Marcos, La Esperanza and Pombaac in makeshift homes. There’s a small plot of land behind the women’s centre that’s now under construction, which has been promised to the abuelas for building their homes. I had to leave my children under a tree to go and cook for the military… and…” Maria Ba Caal leaves that sentence unfinished.
Without proper trials, investigations, and sentencing, the violence towards women will progressively increase. From 2006 to 2011, the budget the military was allotted went from sixty-three million United States dollars to one hundred and seventy-five million dollars. Otto Pérez Molina became the first military official to be elected as president. Shortly after being elected president in 2012, Pérez increased the role of the military in fighting crime. Soldiers now are assigned public safety duties that would normally be reserved for police forces.
Agua Zarca: Indigenous Fight Against Dam Costs Lives
Lack of funding has made the law-enforcement departments ineffective and, seeing how unlikely it is to be charged, criminals are encouraged to continue normalizing this widespread, unchecked violence. Based on the numbers of incidents actually reported and taken to court, only 3% result in any sort of court resolution. A minority of the reported crimes against women go to trial, and even fewer result in a conviction. According to Nobel Women’s Initiative, in the 1980s, 200,000 people were murdered, and thousands of women were raped.
Guatemalan Women Dating – Your Perspective
On a sunny day in June, Mr. Sasvin Dominguez shuffled to a park, his daughter riding in front, hunched over the bars of a pink bicycle meant for a girl half her age. That day, the smugglers called one of Mr. Sasvin Dominguez’s sons, demanding an extra $400 to ferry the two across the river to Texas. If not, they would be tossed out of the safe house, left to the seething violence of Reynosa. She knew Gehovany would consider her leaving a betrayal, especially being pregnant with his child. Insulated from Guatemala’s larger cities, Jalapa is a concentrated version of the gender inequality that fuels the femicide crisis, experts say. He had no money to move and owned nothing but the house, which the family clung to but could hardly bear. His two sons lived in the United States and had families of their own to support.
But life here in the microregion of Ixquisis, in the department of Huehuetenango, has changed drastically in recent years. Several large dams have been constructed in the watershed, including the Pojom II and San Andrés dams, both of which were financed by a private lending arm of the Inter-American Development Bank .
Barrios has spent her career dealing with high-profile corruption, organized crime and human rights abuses which occurred during Guatemala’s 36-year civil war. In 2013, she presided in the genocide trial of former military dictator Efraín Ríos Montt, who was convicted in May 2013 in the killings of hundreds of Ixil Mayans in the 1980s. It was the first time a former head of state was tried for genocide in his home country. However, in Guatemala there is little space for civil society to make their voices heard and influence the government’s decision-making. Therefore, the NGO AIDA stepped in to take the women’s fight against the dams to the international level. AIDA has been supporting the communities to strengthen the capacity of women and community-based organizations to use accountability mechanisms at international financial institutions to protect their rights and environment, through training and legal support.
Specifically, Garcia was using a Social Security number assigned to a now-deceased woman who had lived in Texas. During the course of this investigation, it was determined that this same Social Security number was being used by other individuals illegally working in Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Tennessee. Although our work shows plenty of progress and promise, there are still challenges ahead.
