By Ana Silvia Monzón, Msc: Guatemalan, feminist, sociologist and journalist. Co-founder and coordinator of feminist radio program Voces de Mujeres, and member of Convergencia Cívico Política de Mujeres, 2008.

In more than 3,500 homes in Guatemala, there is a photograph of a woman who is no longer there because she was the victim of a violent murder. Murder is the last in a chain of aggressions tolerated by a culture of male dominance that allows and even promotes violence against women, verbal, sexual, physical, patriarchal, and economic violence. All of these expressions are based on despisal of women and all things female and feminine.

Everyday we wage the battle against hatred / We dodge its demented tricks / We break its codes / Only by breaking the silences is the spell undone. ––– Gisela López (2006)

Guatemala is a small country located in Central America, with a population of approximately 13 million, 51% female, 49% male. Almost 50% of the population is indigenous or Mayan.

The Mayan people fare significantly worse than the non-indigenous population for all socio-economic indicators. Most of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of a very small elite, which means that well-being statistics for the average population reflect an even more extreme poverty.

In the 1940s, two reformist elected presidents allowed free expression, legalized unions, encouraged social reform and promoted the formation of political parties. This period is referred to as the Ten Years of Spring, but it was short-lived.

In the 1960s, the repressive military and the oligarchy regained control, and eventually Guatemala slipped into a 36-year civil war from 1960 to 1996. Over 200,000 civilians were murdered, 45,000 were disappeared, and 440 Mayan villages were wiped from the map.

During the internal armed conflict, 25% of victims were women. Of this figure, 62% were between 18 and 60 years of age, 33% under 17 and 3% older adults.

The aftermath of this violence, which included the widespread rape and torture of women, left gaping wounds that have not yet been healed. Rather, a strong connection exists between this recent war past and the current murders of women. The links are evident in the particular methods, brutality and cruelty with which women are raped, tortured and murdered with the same impunity common during the civil war. These events have also had important negative repercussions on Guatemala’s economic and social indicators.

In 1996, the government signed a peace agreement with the leftist rebels, formally ending the conflict which left countless people dead and over one million homeless refugees.

Since then, the country has stabilized somewhat. But in the past ten years more than 3,500 women have been murdered and the lion’s share of those murders has gone uninvestigated and unresolved. This phenomenon, called femicide, represents a series of stark human rights violations and is the most extreme act in the continuum of violence against women, which includes psychological, physical, sexual, political and economic (or patrimonial) violence. Women experience these manifestations of violence throughout their lives, including childhood, at home, at school and in public places.

Graphic No. 1: Guatemala’s Femicide Figures 2001-2006

For Guatemalan women, the words gender and violence immediately bring to mind the violent deaths of so many of us. As the reported statistics on violence against women grow relentlessly, images of tortured, mutilated bodies cross our vision; their grotesque descriptions in the media are “normalized” by their frequency, and insults to the victims are amplified by comments from family members, neighbors, coworkers, or even strangers on the bus. People make comments like “Poor thing, see what they did to her?” followed by “Who knows what she was involved in… Maybe she was messed up in something… She liked partying. She would walk alone at night. She would dress inappropriately, provocatively.” Then voices trail off with unspoken answers left in the air.

We associate gender and violence with danger, vulnerability, and risk for women, who— as the available statistics show—are victims of aggressions perpetrated by men. The social conditions underlying these statistics refer us to gender relations (i.e. power imbalances), as constructed within patriarchy, explain, in part, the existence of and impunity for violence against women. This violence is one of the core concerns of women’s movements around the world, particularly during the last three decades. However, the existence, identification, analysis, and condemnation of this violence date from much earlier times.

It is important to acknowledge that feminists and women’s movements have placed the violent deaths of women in the public sphere and emphasized its habitual occurrence and impunity as a great social problem. Women’s rights activists have also presented new concepts and parameters for analysis that bring forth a reality that was obscured for a long time. Only two decades ago, popular opinion shifted and began to accept the fact that striking a woman in an intimate relationship is not “normal”. Thus, the popular saying “you always hurt the one you love” began to lose its value as conventional wisdom and becomes a questionable and unacceptable phrase.

In this process of conceptualizing, categorizing and labeling the pervasive but nearly invisible reality of violence against women, certain concepts were created such as “violence against women,” “gender violence,” and more recently, “femicide” (femicidio or feminicidio). Thus, violence against women is described as “any act or conduct, based on gender, which causes death or physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, whether in the public or the private sphere.”1

This statement from the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence Against Women (“Convention of Belem do Para”), signed in 1994, summarizes hundreds of studies and debates that can no longer be ignored. As intellectuals, civil servants, teachers, fathers, mothers, and responsible adults, we cannot plead ignorance to the existence of abuse, its frequency and, above all, its harmful impact on people whose human rights have been violated and whose lives have been deeply affected by fear, mistrust and lack of self-esteem. These ill effects originate in the first violent blow a child receives.

In two decades, the women’s movement has achieved legal progress such as the newly approved Law against Femicide, which requires state institutions to provide attention, guarantee women’s civil safety, and protect their lives. Nevertheless, this law is still unknown for the majority of women in Guatemala.

From a market-based perspective, violence in gender relations can result in economic losses, also. Even without considering the ethical imperative, there is a solid economic argument that should serve as pretext for nations to take action to eradicate violence against women in order to avoid the resulting loss of working days, corresponding medical expenses, and exorbitant public expenditures in inefficient legal and judicial processes. Violence against women is not just women’s business, as these horrific conditions affect men, children, and the elderly as well. Such violence crosses class boundaries, ethnic groups, religious beliefs, and age. No one is safe from the negative effects of violence, which is not limited to blows, its most visible sign. This violence expresses itself in economic, sexual, working, political, and cultural relationships. Studies on violence and its effects have deepened and broadened their identification of the many forms that this violence can take; there is, for instance, sexual, psychological, patrimonial, and—as Venezuelan women have recently denounced—obstetric and media violence.2

We live in a world of hierarchical relationships and, in order to maintain power, violence is used as a mechanism of subjugation and dissuasion so that power structures are not questioned and violence is forever reproduced and largely unpunished. Las Moiras, a group of women who encourage critical thinking about women’s issues, point out in their 2002 annual feminist Women’s Agenda that violence occurs “not because [a woman] is rich or poor, or because she is illiterate or educated; it is not because she walks alone on the street, or because she wears a short skirt, or because she is a prostitute. It is because of all this and because of nothing. It is because I am a woman and they want me quiet, silent, and in fear.”3 Fear—the fear of losing privilege—and weakness—which is expressed with aggression— are aspects of violence against women. Fear and weakness were learned by women through centuries-long oppression and subordination. Fortunately, increasing numbers of women are unlearning and challenging these norms.

More than 2,900 women—young women and children alike—were murdered in Guatemala between 2002 and 2007, according to a report by Amnesty International. Nevertheless, 70% of these cases are not investigated and in 97% of them no arrests are made. Women’s groups, in solidarity with the victims’ families, continue to challenge the

In two decades, the women’s movement has achieved legal progress such as the newly approved Law against Femicide, which requires state institutions to provide attention, guarantee women’s civil safety, and protect their lives. Nevertheless, this law is still unknown for the majority of women in Guatemala.

notion that it is normal for women to be passive and silent, and continuously demand that the authorities properly investigate and solve the murders of all of these women. These women had names: Flor de María, Orquídea, María Isabel, Marleny, Ileana, Santos, Claudina, Bernarda, Ana Sofía, Rosa María, Caterina, Michelle, and Evelyn. The thousands of murdered women were our mothers, sisters, daughters, nieces, grandmothers, friends, neighbors, companions at work and at school. These were women who loved, worked, studied, and contributed to their families and to society.

They all had a face, a history, and an identity. We shall not forget them!

Bibliography

Comunicación Social para la Democracia. Estudio Violencia contra las mujeres 2008. Guatemala, IDEM/FGER, 2008.

Monzón, Ana Silvia et al Género y violencia. En: Lectura a fondo. Guatemala, CIF-AECI, 2007.

Sanford, Victoria. Guatemala: del genocidio al feminicidio. Guatemala, F&G Editores, 2008.

Svendsen, Kristin. Por ser mujer. Guatemala, ICCPG/FEG-ACDI/ASDI, 2007.

1 The concept of violence is basically defined as “the use of force, be it physical, psychological or sexual, or the threat of the use of force over another person who is the victim.” It is to force someone to do something against their will or that goes against their integrity or interests.

2 The Right of Women to a Life Free of Violence Act was passed in November 2006 in Venezuela. It represents significant progress as it typifies as a crime the following types of violence: work-related, obstetric, patrimonial, sexual, domestic, psychological and physical.

3 Agenda de las Mujeres 2002, Madrid: horas y HORAS. www.unapalabraotra.org/horasyhoras.html

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