Femicide; Guatemala

Violence in Guatemala is part of the daily facts. It would seem like nothing surprises Guatemalans, not kidnappings, assaults, rapes or even murders. According to the United Nations Development Program Statistical Report on Violence the homicide rate in Guatemala in 2006 stood at 47 per each 10,000 population; what we do not see in these numbers is that more than 80% of the victims are women. Often TV news displays the corpses of women who have been tortured, raped and marked. The amount and frequency by which theses types of crimes happen, has led them to be named femicides, but just the way it appears on the news each morning, the crimes are forgotten that same evening. Homicides and femicides are both murders and should be given the same attention, but it is important to recognize that femicides in Guatemalan society are violent gender-based crimes against women that send a message to them that they are of no value and that they better keep to their traditional roles.

The word femicide means the murder of women, but it is not used for just any kind of murder. This type of crime refers to “killings characterized by extreme viciousness often involving rape, torture, mutilation and dismemberment” (UNPF 1). It is a especially vicious and gender based crime; women are not only murdered but also tortured, marked and sexually abused before dying, “by contrast to male murder victims, who are almost always killed by firearm” (Saver). The crime is not only a violent murder, but the way it is perpetuated sends a strong message about the value of women in the particular society where it happens.

In June 12, 2004, the Guatemalan newspaper Prensa Libre had an article on the murder of the 17-year-old woman Andrea Fabiola Contreras Bacaro; for which the description of the crime included sexual abuse and torture.

She was found with her hands tied in a plastic bag which had been thrown into a ditch used as a rubbish dump. Her throat had been cut, she had wounds and cuts on her face and chest and she had been shot at close range in the head. She had been raped; her plastic sandals, white blouse and underclothes were found next to her body (Parliament 3).

The crime had not been perpetrated with the sole purpose of getting rid of the victim, but also sexually abuse and torture her, then dump her like a piece of garbage. “Femicide is said to be a result from a climate of generalized violence and discrimination against women and leading to the attitude that ‘women’ are expendable and can be routinely used abused and discarded” (Parliament 4).

The feminist activist, specialized in the topic of femicide Marcela Lagarde explains it as “a hate crime against women, a misogynous crime forged by the enormous social and state tolerance of gender violence” (Parliament 6). The reason why it is classified as a gender-based crime is because the sex of the victim seems to be an important factor in the crime, influencing the reasons and motives, the context in which it is perpetrated, as well as the type of violence that women suffer.

Another important characteristic of femicide is the impunity of the crimes, the lack of punishment to the perpetrators. In Guatemala the impunity comes on one hand from the common people, their values and traditions, and on the other hand, from the State that has an inefficient and corrupt judicial system, and the Government’s lack of attention to this issue. There is a common “perception that violence against women and especially domestic violence is not a serious crime” (Parliament 5). The Guatemalan Ex Vice President Eduardo Stein said to the press that the government was having problems gathering statistics and that after all “the same level of violence exists in other Latin American countries” (Saver). The country’s administration plays a major role in the impunity of the crimes. There is no interest on researching and investigating crimes, and there is no sex-disaggregated data in official documents according to the European Parliament Report on femicide in Guatemala and Mexico.

The numbers presented by the police for 2004 attribute 175 deaths to gunshot, 27 to knife wounds and 323 to “other causes”. The categories, however, conceal the gender-based brutality and sexual nature of many of the killings in which victims present evidence of rape, mutilation and dismemberment. Other categories such as death from multiple trauma, head trauma or abdominal trauma do not distinguish whether the deaths were accidental or the results of intentional harm, for example, being beaten to death. (Parliament 5)

The Guatemalan constitution nowadays continues to have major flaws that also allow perpetrators to stay unpunished, the most noticeable is the article 200, Chapter VII of the Código Penal, which exonerates perpetrators of rape if he marries the victim and the victim is over 12 years old. The only way the perpetrator would be punished would be if there was proof that the victim did not provoke him, which leads to a direct blaming of the victim.

The other major factor that contributes to the impunity of this crimes in Guatemala, is the machismo culture of manliness, male virility and pride that imposes the submission of women in all social, emotional and sexual levels, and ends up supporting misogyny or hatred towards women. “Violence is positive within machista culture: it is a central component of the masculine identity’s attributes of toughness, force and aggression” (Parliament) and violence against women happens as a reaction against the changes that have allowed women to be politically involved and conscious about their freedom to decide for their life’s and bodies.

The ideal role of women in most societies around the world is limited to having children, childrearing and housekeeping, sometimes accompanied by agricultural and animal husbandry tasks. Often these tasks involve long hours of tedious drudgery or endless task fetching water, wood, tusking, etc, where they are also exposed to high risks of gender violence. Any intent to change or violate these roles represents a threat to men’s supremacy, so the control of the women’s body becomes and important device to maintain their power status, which is beginning to be questioned. Violence against women can be seen as the result of historic unequal power relations between genders that have led to male domination, which wants to be preserved by stopping women’s full advancement according to the report on femicide to the European Parliament.

Most of the serious violence perpetuated against women is done in the name of preserving virginity and marriage vows or punishing women for violating those vows… Female genital mutilation, honor killings, public beatings, lashing, and stoning are all carried out primarily in the interest of preventing sexual behavior outside marriage. (Forsaken 12)

Another factor for impunity and increasing violence is female education. Education for women has not been of major interest for Guatemalans until the mis-1990’s, and this is something that creates a major gap between men and women making women question less and make less use of their rights. “The ability to read is one of the most fundamental skills to social order. Furthermore education provides new perspectives and open dialogues about ideas an concepts that may challenge traditional authority.” (Forsaken 35) In the case of education it can be also seen as a cause of the increasing amount of femicides as it threatens male supremacy as mentioned before, if there is not enough protection from the authorities for women pursuing their education.

Even if women are educated the lack of trust in the authorities lead to intimidation from husbands and men, that may avoid their taking of steps to denounce any type of sexual or domestic violence. According to the Femicide Report for the European Parliament “a third of all cases of murder take place within the family after the victims have suffered violent incidents and attacks, often in silence, for many years” before being murdered, some of them have been murdered for complaining about ill treatment by a partner or sometimes because they refused to join a gang or wanted to leave one.

In the case of Guatemala the political and social changes that have taken place during the last half of the twentieth century have affected women’s life’s creating a precedent of violence against them at the same time as giving them more rights and opportunities, but nevertheless this has increased their vulnerability in the workplace, family, community and society.

This dates back as much as fifty years ago, when the democratic elected President Jacobo Arbenz expropriated lands of the United Fruit Company. With this happening the CIA directed a military coup that led to the sprouting of guerrillas, and later on the creation of paramilitary groups supported by the United States to get rid of insurgent groups. This led to one of the worst and most violent civil repressions in Latin America.

During the Cold War the United States government continued to support the Guatemalan military and paramilitary groups to protect their interest in the country. These groups gained control of large portions of land killing many people, mostly Mayans. This series of massacres are now recognized as one of the worse genocides in the world. Political opponents were killed and women raped, mutilated and murdered; pregnant women had their wombs opened and fetus hung from trees.

Upon closer examination, women are disproportionately, victimized when war civil unrest, and poverty exist… Not only are they directly affected by war-induced violence, but the social violence that results from civil unrest also puts women at great risk… And of course women are particularly at risk within cultures where unchallenged patriarchy and misogyny are embedded in political, religious, or social systems. (Forsaken 13)

After 36 years of armed conflict and horrendous massacres and tortures, were more than 200,000 had been killed, 40,000 disappeared and 1,3 million Guatemalans had become refugees (Toomey), the United Nations started the negotiation for a Peace Treaty, between the Military, the Paramilitary and the Guerrillas.

After all this happened the Catholic Church that had been keeping record of the dead and disappeared, publicly denounced the fact that 93% of the deaths and disappearances had been on the hands of the military, the police and paramilitary groups. Right after this was published Monseñor Juan Gerardi, the bishop who had published this work, was killed in front of his house and years later three officers were condemned for the homicide.

Recognizing that the United States government had supported the armed groups, the UN Peace Treaty demanded the reform and reduction of the Armed Forces and the Police. Nevertheless while they were re organizing these institutions, the members kept on being the same and the people responsible for the worse massacres remains unpunished, to the point that General Efraín Ríos Montt became President of the Guatemalan Congress. So impunity for crimes in Guatemalans is not something new, and as Christine Toomey mentions in the article “Feminicidio en Guatemala”, in a country that has witnessed so many atrocities and law violations it is not surprising that life is worth nothing. And in a land with such a marked machismo culture, it is expected that men will be already used to think that they can kill, torture and rape women and remain unpunished.

During the Peace Treaty negotiations, women were given more rights that afforded them to be political and active in public life, this caused a culture shock that men have not yet accepted. The Inter-American Commission of Human Rights says that the point of these crimes is to “send a message of terror and intimidation” (Sauer) that women should leave the public space and end their role in the development of their country. Once again we encounter the obstacle of a machista and misogynous culture with this response from men to this changes.

The Peace Treaties are an important factor, but there has been a “dramatic rise in violent crime in recent years often linked to organized crime, including drugs, arms and people trafficking, pornographic rings and prostitution, or the activities of street youth gangs known as ‘maras’ ” (Parliament 5); from 184 women murdered in 2002, to 250 in 2003 and 300 in 2004 for these records. (Sauer) Nevertheless most of the victims of gangs and organized crimes are not marked and their bodies moved to other places after being killed. “To do so would require a degree of logistical organization 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.” (Garza) According to Manuela Garza the marking and moving of the bodies are characteristics of military victims, as it happened during the genocide.

In Guatemala another contributor to the large numbers of victims is domestic femicide, which “refers to the murder of women by current or ex partners – marital, dating, cohabitating, and so forth.” (Sheryl 422) According to various sources 33% of the victims are related to their murderers, which can be interpreted as victims of domestic femicide. As explained in Forsaken Females “Political and social upheaval, changing environmental conditions, and exposure to change in family roles may affect women’s safety in the home, aside from any culturally sanctioned forms of violence that may coexist” as social bonds are broken and men undergo more pressure from the community and society.

Nowadays feminist groups are working hard to put an end to this impunity and atrocious acts. “They want the government to make violence against women a public issue by funding research and investigation.” One step they have taken independently from the government is to let people know what is happening. With a lack of detailed reports on the news about the sex violence behind these murders, the feminist newspaper “La Cuerda” has been constantly presenting cases and sex disaggregated data, letting more people know what is going on in the country and putting more pressure on the government to act, “but they’re dismissed as ‘man-hating lesbians’ ” (Sauer).

The Presidential Secretariat on Women has created a Specific Commission to address Femicide that is helping the state develop strategies to eliminate this trend of crimes, but the changes are too slow and the victim’s relatives and Human Rights organizations are looking outside the country for help and support.

This is the case of Rosa Franco who has been working hard for the last six years to start a proper investigation of the murder of her teenage daughter María Isabel. One night in the news she recognized the corpse of her daughter lying down in a field. Rosa started pressuring the Police, for them to find the murderer, she showed evidence to the police that he daughter’s cellular phone had been used after her death and study the testimony of some people that witnessed the dropping of the body from a car. The Police accused her of messing around with them and publicly declared that her daughter was a prostitute (Toomey). This stigmatization and blaming of victims is blocking the investigation and proper functioning of the law.

Just as Rosa Franco, Cervelia Roldán has been encountering many obstacles; her daughter Manuela Sachaz was 19 years old and took care of a 10-month-old baby. Her body was found over a pool of blood. She was raped, mutilated, her breasts and lips had been amputated; her legs had holes. The baby was sitting on its sit, with her breakfast in front of him. Both had been decapitated. Crying and holding a picture of her grandson, Cervelia Roldán points out that her neighbor who happens to be a policeman used to flirt with Manuela and disappeared right after the double murder. The authorities have not shown any interest in investigating this crime (Toomey). This lack of interest might be due to the fact that the authorities, the military and the police are not only involved in the crimes, but tacitly agree with these acts, because they are all part of the misogynous and machista culture.

Just as these two cases, the authorities ignore many more every week in Guatemala. Strong and perseverant women inside and outside the country are accomplishing slow changes. It is hard to change a whole country’s mindset to create awareness of this crimes happening and make both men and women recognize women’s rights, but the constant work and pressure for the government will be able to make a change for these women.

Works Cited
Benítez, Inés. “Guatemala: Homicide Rate From Bad to Worse.” Inter Press Service. 12 Dec. 2007. Inter Press Service. 2007. Inter Press Service. 28 May. 2008.
European Union. European Parliament. Feminicide The Case of Mexico and Guatemala. Brussels: EU Parliament, 2006.
Garza Ascencio, Manuela. “Guatemala – Violence Against Women Unchecked and Unpunished.” Alterinfos 30 Nov 2005. Alterinfos América Latina. 2005, Alterinfos América Latina. 28 May. 2008.
Grama, Sheryl. “Sociocultural Considerations of Domestic Femicide.” Journal of Family Violence (2001): 421-435. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Shoreline Community College Lib. 26 April 2008
Guatemala. Congress. Código Penal. Art. 200 Ch. VII. Ciudad de Guatemala: 1973.
Parrot, Andrea, and Nina Cummings. Forsaken Females. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Little Field, 2006.
Sauer, Jen. “Fighting Femicide In Guatemala.” Off Our Backs. March 2005: 36-38. Proquest. Shoreline Community College Lib. 26 April 2008
Toomey, Christine. “Feminicidio en Guatemala.” Mujeres Iberoamericanas 02 Jan. 2006. Mujeres en red. 2006. Mujeres en red. 28 May. 2008.