Sexual Violence in Guatemala

Margot Wallström, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, congratulated Guatemala on the arrest of General Hector Mario Lopez Fuentes. 

“The apprehension of General Lopez Fuentes sends a strong signal to all perpetrators that conflict-related sexual violence is not acceptable, and that justice will ultimately prevail,” Ms. Wallström said.

“Sexual violence thrives on silence and impunity,” she added. “Women have no rights if those who violate their rights go unpunished.”

During the scorched-earth program carried out by the Guatemalan government in the early 1980s, entire villages were burned to the ground, women and girls were brutally raped, and unborn children were killed.

CNN also had a story today that focused mainly upon researchers who have spent much of their lives interviewing victims of rape. The first part of the article is based upon the work of Victoria Sanford and Daniel Rothenberg in Guatemala. Sanford has been carrying out work in Guatemala for the last few decades and has spent numerous hours interviewing Guatemalan women who suffered wartime rape.  

The soldiers set fire to our villages. They shot our husbands and brothers, burned our houses. They stopped to wait for the sound of our babies crying. When they cried, the soldiers came toward the wailing.

They killed our babies. They raped us.

The stories are important for the world to hear and just as importantly for the victims to share. Unfortunately, violence against women did not start with the beginning the of conflict in Guatemala nor did it stop with war's conclusion. Women continue to be raped and killed at an alarming rate.

The government's most recent effort to reduce gender-based violence is to designate women-only buses.

According to the local Association of Urban Buses, an average of a dozen vehicles per day are attacked by armed assailants who rob passengers and regularly assault female riders. Congresswoman  Zury Ríos Sosa, who spearheaded the gender-segregated bus initiative, says the new system will protect women and enhance their safety on public transportation. Ríos has said she would also like to create a women-only taxi system similar to those already established in Mexico City and other Latin American cities.

A separate bus for women sounds like a good idea to me. It's not a solution to the problem, but perhaps it will make life a little safer for Guatemalan women until society comes up with one.