|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
GUATEMALA:
Violence Against
Women Unchecked and Unpunished
Manuel
Bermúdez
SAN JOSÉ, (IPS) - Hundreds
of people marched through the
streets of Guatemala City Friday
to mark the International Day
for the Elimination of Violence
against Women, painting X's on
judicial buildings and security
agencies to protest the failure
to protect women and bring the
perpetrators to justice.
"An average of 14 or 15 murders
a day are committed in
Guatemala," human rights
prosecutor Sergio Morales told
IPS, noting that so far this
year, 560 women have been slain,
and not a single murderer has
been convicted.
Guatemala's homicide rate is
among the highest in Latin
America, one of the most violent
regions in the world.
"Since 2001, the phenomenon has
grown in both quantitative and
qualitative terms, because these
murders are accompanied by
extreme violence, which
aggravates the victims'
suffering," by contrast to male
murder victims, who are almost
always killed by firearms, he
explained.
Civil society groups, meanwhile,
complain about the justice
system's failure to investigate
the murders of women.
"We are seeing a setback with
regard to the rights of women,
not only in terms of the
killings, which are the most
brutal expression, but also with
respect to all kinds of violence
against women, which the state
justifies and tolerates,"
activist Andrea Barrios told IPS.
Barrios belongs to the Centre
for Legal Action on Human Rights
(CALDH) and the 25 de Noviembre
Coordinator, an umbrella group
of more than 30 organisations.
Morales said that
"unfortunately, our justice
system has been incapable of
bringing to trial and punishing
those who planned or committed
the more than 1,600 murders of
women that have occurred in the
past four years."
Citing a statement by the office
of the prosecutor of crimes
against life, he said that "of
the 2,400 cases it was handling,
it was only investigating 40."
The report "Guatemala: No
protection, no justice: Killings
of women in Guatemala", released
by the London-based human rights
group Amnesty International in
June, states that the alarming
increase in the number of
killings of women is compounded
by impunity, weak laws, and a
firmly entrenched "machista" or
sexist mindset.
On the eve of the International
Day for the Elimination of
Violence against Women, Amnesty
International called for protest
demonstrations in front of the
Guatemalan embassies in
Argentina, Chile, Ecuador,
Mexico, Peru, Uruguay and
Venezuela.
The international rights
watchdog's aim was to draw
attention to the violence facing
women in Guatemala, which has
some of the most severe levels
of gender-based violence in
Latin America and the Caribbean.
In the past three years, the
total number of murders of women
climbed from 383 in 2003 to 527
in 2004 and 560 so far this
year.
Domestic violence is to blame
for a portion of the murders, as
indicated by police statistics,
which show that 33 percent of
the victims were somehow related
to their murderers.
The authorities maintain that
the expansion of youth gangs
known as "maras" in Central
America is also linked to the
atrocious crimes committed
against women, whose bodies are
often found with signs of
torture or mutilation.
But both Barrios and Morales say
that while the maras are one
factor contributing to violence
against women, they are not the
most important one.
Morales noted, for example, that
the gangs do not move the bodies
of their victims to other
locations after killing them,
and they do not use torture.
To do so would require a degree
of logistical organisation that
the gangs simply do not have,
"but the government uses the
maras as an excuse to divert
attention away from the fact
that it is not living up to its
responsibilities," said Barrios.
Morales and Barrios stressed
that there are criminal elements
in Guatemala who are widely
known to have a well developed
organisational base and to
purposely send out a message
through inhuman acts that
contribute to their goal:
terrorising the population in
order to ensure their impunity.
This is essentially the modus
operandi of the military and the
paramilitary death squads that
sowed terror throughout
Guatemala during the 1960-1996
civil war.
Countless women were raped,
mutilated and tortured by army
troops, with similar methods to
those being used today, Barrios
emphasised. .
The 1996 peace accords
established specific commitments
for the defence of women, noted
Barrios.
"We want the government to live
up to its responsibility, since
it has ratified the
Inter-American Convention to
Prevent, Punish and Eradicate
Violence Against Women, and
international treaties take
precedence over national
legislation, where we still have
certain gaps," she added.
For her part, psychologist Vilma
Ovalle from the Asociación Mujer
Vamos Adelante (literally,
"Women, let's go!") stressed
that continued impunity for
these crimes against women is
the main factor behind their
rise in recent years.
She also pointed to the practice
of stigmatising the victims by
claiming that they are members
of the maras or sex trade
workers, in order to escape
responsibility for clearing up
the real causes behind the
murders.
"Although we are somewhat
pessimistic about the situation
because of the general
deterioration of the social
fabric, there have been some
advances, given that there are
more organisations and greater
support for women to come
forward and report these
crimes," said Ovalle.
In the meantime, Alba Estela
Maldonado, a lawmaker and former
rebel fighter from the leftist
Guatemalan National
Revolutionary Unity, is heading
up a commission that is
currently touring Europe to draw
attention to the serious
situation of violence against
women in her country.
In her book, Femicide in
Guatemala: Crimes Against
Humanity, Maldonado exposes the
institutional weaknesses that
have allowed the brutalisation
of women to continue unchecked
and unpunished. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
