For Women's Right to Live

For Women's Right to Live Campaign
GHRC launched a campaign in 2005 to end the brutal violence against women in Guatemala that has claimed the lives of over 3,000 young women since 2000. Of the 3,000 women murdered since 2000, there have been fewer than 30 firm court sentences, including both convictions and acquittals. According to police figures, 665 women were killed in Guatemala in 2005, an astonishing twenty percent increase from the 527 killed in 2004. Police figures show that the violence continues as 603 women were killed in 2006. The Guatemalan government is doing little to stem the violence, so the international community must make its voice heard.

Read important FAQs relating to the femicides in Guatemala.

Get Involved
* Support GHRC's For Women's Right to Live campaign by purchasing a t-shirt!
* Read about our July 2007 delegation to Guatemala
* Read about our April 2007 speaking tour

Violence Against Women
The rule of law in Guatemala is steadily weakening. The judicial system barely functions; the police force is underpaid and under trained; and the army is increasingly called out into the street to keep order, violating the one of the peace accords that limits the army to protecting the country’s borders. The Guatemalan government, intent on encouraging foreign investment, downplays the rising violence. The international community—and especially the United States government—also has an interest in presenting Guatemala in a light favorable to investors, particularly since Guatemala joined the Central American Free Trade Agreement in 2006.

The starkest expressions of Guatemala’s spiral into violence are the brutal murders of women. Since 2000, more than 3,000 women have been murdered in Guatemala, and each year the body count rises. In 2004, the number of women killed increased by twenty-eight percent over the previous year, to a total of 527 deaths. This rate—more than forty murders a month—is staggering. According to police figures, 665 women were killed in Guatemala in 2005, an astonishing twenty percent increase from the 527 killed in 2004. In 2006, the violence continued and police figures report that 603 women were killed in Guatemala this past year. By way of comparison, more women have been killed in one year in Guatemala than were murdered in the past decade in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.

Perhaps the very horror and the astounding scope of these murders explain the silence and inaction of the Guatemalan government and the international community. “Everyone knows about the murdered women of Ciudad Juárez, but it’s as if the case of the murdered women of Guatemala were being hushed up,’’ noted Hilda Morales, of Guatemala’s No Violence Against Women Network. The US embassy, for one, has not expressed particular concern. When confronted with the issue of women’s murders in Guatemala, U.S. State Department officials respond that more men and children than women are being murdered. Indeed, the murders of men and children have also increased as the crime rate has risen, but the percentage of homicide victims who are women climbs every year. What differentiates the murders of women in Guatemala from the murders of men and children is not simply the numbers but the brutality of the killings. Most women are raped and tortured before being killed, and their mutilated bodies are left in public places, to be found by members of their communities.

While about a third of the murders are related to domestic violence, investigations suggest a less personal pattern in the other cases. Twenty-three police officers have been linked to ten of the murders, fueling the suspicion of many Guatemalan analysts that clandestine security forces linked to the police and to the army are murdering women with such brutality to foment political instability and a climate of terror. The Inter-American Human Rights Commission’s special investigator on women’s rights, like Guatemalan human rights leaders, found that the apparent objective of the brutal murders is to send a message of terror and intimidation. This intimidation, she noted, may lead women to retreat from participation in public life, gained with so much effort, and limit themselves again to the private world, abandoning their indispensable role in national development.

The Guatemalan government, by omission, is complicit in the terror. The low priority the government gives the issue of femicidio is reflected in the scant resources it allocates to investigators and the almost complete absence of prosecution. According to an investigative report in Guatemala’s newspaper Siglo XXI, only three police officers are actively investigating 257 cases of murdered women. Only international publicity and pressure will convince the Guatemalan government to protect its country’s women and hold those who slaughter them accountable.

Read more

Getting Away With Murder - a video about violence against women in Guatemala made by GHRC Delegate Andrew Petonak

	Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA

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	For Women's Right to Live Main - Delegation - Speaking Tour - FAQs For Women's Right to Live Campaign GHRC launched a campaign in 2005 to end the brutal violence against women in Guatemala that has claimed the lives of over 3,000 young women since 2000. Of the 3,000 women murdered since 2000, there have been fewer than 30 firm court sentences, including both convictions and acquittals. According to police figures, 665 women were killed in Guatemala in 2005, an astonishing twenty percent increase from the 527 killed in 2004. Police figures show that the violence continues as 603 women were killed in 2006. The Guatemalan government is doing little to stem the violence, so the international community must make its voice heard. Read important FAQs relating to the femicides in Guatemala. Get Involved * Support GHRC's For Women's Right to Live campaign by purchasing a t-shirt! * Read about our July 2007 delegation to Guatemala * Read about our April 2007 speaking tour Violence Against Women The rule of law in Guatemala is steadily weakening. The judicial system barely functions; the police force is underpaid and under trained; and the army is increasingly called out into the street to keep order, violating the one of the peace accords that limits the army to protecting the country’s borders. The Guatemalan government, intent on encouraging foreign investment, downplays the rising violence. The international community—and especially the United States government—also has an interest in presenting Guatemala in a light favorable to investors, particularly since Guatemala joined the Central American Free Trade Agreement in 2006. The starkest expressions of Guatemala’s spiral into violence are the brutal murders of women. Since 2000, more than 3,000 women have been murdered in Guatemala, and each year the body count rises. In 2004, the number of women killed increased by twenty-eight percent over the previous year, to a total of 527 deaths. This rate—more than forty murders a month—is staggering. According to police figures, 665 women were killed in Guatemala in 2005, an astonishing twenty percent increase from the 527 killed in 2004. In 2006, the violence continued and police figures report that 603 women were killed in Guatemala this past year. By way of comparison, more women have been killed in one year in Guatemala than were murdered in the past decade in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Perhaps the very horror and the astounding scope of these murders explain the silence and inaction of the Guatemalan government and the international community. “Everyone knows about the murdered women of Ciudad Juárez, but it’s as if the case of the murdered women of Guatemala were being hushed up,’’ noted Hilda Morales, of Guatemala’s No Violence Against Women Network. The US embassy, for one, has not expressed particular concern. When confronted with the issue of women’s murders in Guatemala, U.S. State Department officials respond that more men and children than women are being murdered. Indeed, the murders of men and children have also increased as the crime rate has risen, but the percentage of homicide victims who are women climbs every year. What differentiates the murders of women in Guatemala from the murders of men and children is not simply the numbers but the brutality of the killings. Most women are raped and tortured before being killed, and their mutilated bodies are left in public places, to be found by members of their communities. While about a third of the murders are related to domestic violence, investigations suggest a less personal pattern in the other cases. Twenty-three police officers have been linked to ten of the murders, fueling the suspicion of many Guatemalan analysts that clandestine security forces linked to the police and to the army are murdering women with such brutality to foment political instability and a climate of terror. The Inter-American Human Rights Commission’s special investigator on women’s rights, like Guatemalan human rights leaders, found that the apparent objective of the brutal murders is to send a message of terror and intimidation. This intimidation, she noted, may lead women to retreat from participation in public life, gained with so much effort, and limit themselves again to the private world, abandoning their indispensable role in national development. The Guatemalan government, by omission, is complicit in the terror. The low priority the government gives the issue of femicidio is reflected in the scant resources it allocates to investigators and the almost complete absence of prosecution. According to an investigative report in Guatemala’s newspaper Siglo XXI, only three police officers are actively investigating 257 cases of murdered women. Only international publicity and pressure will convince the Guatemalan government to protect its country’s women and hold those who slaughter them accountable. Read more Guatemala Human Rights Commission Getting Away With Murder - a video about violence against women in Guatemala made by GHRC Delegate Andrew Petonak Three Thousand and Counting: A Report on Violence Against Women in Guatemala" (pdf) Center for Gender and Refugee Studies Getting Away With Murder: Guatemala's Failure to Protect Women and Rodi Alvarado's Quest for Safety (pdf) Guatemala's Femicides and the Ongoing Struggle for Women's Human Rights: Update to CGRS's 2005 Report Getting Away with Murder (pdf) Amnesty International No Protection, No Justice: Killings of Women in Guatemala Update to No Protection, No Justice United Nations Report of the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, Mission to Guatemala (pdf) Washington Office on Latin America Hidden in Plain Sight: Violence Against Women in Mexico and Guatemala (pdf)





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Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA