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Guatemala

, ECLAC: At least 2,795 were victims of femicide in 23 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean in 2017, Gender Equality Observatory for Latin America and the Caribbean, 2017

Stressing the need to create inter-agency agreements, the 2017 Economic Commission for the Latin America and the Caribbean’s report on femicide shows that Brazil topped the list of femicides (with 1,133 victims confirmed in 2017). In 2016, Honduras recorded 5.8 femicides for every 100,000 women. In Guatemala, the Dominican Republic and Bolivia, high rates were also seen in 2017, equal to or above 2 cases for every 100,000 women. In the region, only Panama, Peru and Venezuela have rates below 1.0. In the Caribbean, four countries accounted for a total of 35 femicide victims in 2017: Belize (9 victims), the British Virgin Islands (1), Saint Lucia (4) and Trinidad and Tobago (21). In the same year, Guyana and Jamaica — which only have data on intimate femicides — reported the deaths of 34 and 15 women, respectively, at the hands of their current or former partners. In 2017, the rates of intimate femicides in Latin America ranged between a maximum of 1.98 for every 100,000 women in the Dominican Republic, to a minimum of 0.47 in Chile.

, Women in Guatemala steer change, seek solutions to end sexual harassment in public spaces, UN Women, 2018

Highlights the initiative ‘Guatemala Safe City’ as part of the UN Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces Global Initiative to tackle sexual harassment in Guatemala. 

, Guatemala: Two Women Murdered Every Day, Horizons, 2018

Exlores femicide in Guatemala with particular reference to violence experienced by indigenous women.

See also https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/femicide-in-mexico-and-guatemala/

, Capacity4dev, Spotlight Initiative: countering violence against women in Central America, Europa.eu, 2018

Highlights the initiatives undertaken by the EU and the UN in Guatemala and Mexico to tackle violence against women and girls. Other Latin American countries that are part of the project are El Salvador, Argentina and Honduras. 

Agosin, Marjorie, Surviving Beyond Fear: Women, Children and Human Rights, ed. Agosin, Marjorie, Fredonia NY, White Pine Press, 1993, pp. 217

Collection of essays and documents, including materials on mothers’ resistance in Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, and Guatemala.

Boerman, Thomas ; Knapp, Jennifer, Gang Culture and Violence Against Women in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, Immigration Briefings, no. 17-03, 2017, pp. 1-16

Brockett, Charles D., Political Movements and Violence in Central America, Cambridge MA, Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 404

Analyses the confrontation between popular movements – urban and rural – and repressive regimes, especially in Guatemala and El Salvador, in particular discussing the ‘repression-protest paradox’.

Ecumenical Program on Central America (EPICA), ; Center for Human Rights Legal Action (CHRLA), Out of the Shadows: The Communities of Population in Resistance in Guatemala, Washington DC, EPICA and CHRLA, 1993

Fulmer, Amanda ; Godoy, Angelina ; Neff, Philip, Indigenous Rights, Resistance and the Law: Lessons from a Guatemalan Mine, Cambridge Core, Vol. 50, no. 4, 2008, pp. 91-121

This case study of the Marlin gold mine in Guatemala, which was a source of controversy among the local indigenous people, examines the role of national and international law as well as of international financial institutions and the concept of corporate social responsibility in major mining  projects in developing countries.

See also: 'Gold Mine's Closing leaves Uncertain Legacy in Guatemala Mayan Community;  Global Sisters' Report, 23 May 2016, pp. 20.

https://www.globalsistersreport.org/news/environment/gold-mines-closing-leaves-uncertain-legacy-guatemala-mayan-community-39986

Survey of the impact of the Marlin gold mine in Guatemala, owned by a subsidiary of Goldcorp, on the local Mam, one of the Mayan nations in the country. Some found jobs and temporary prosperity through the mine, whilst others campaigned against a breach of indigenous right to proper consultation, the challenge to Mayan customs and the environmental hazards. Catholic nuns joined with Mayan activists to found the 'Parish Sisters and Brothers of Mother Earth Committee' to resist the mine in 2009. The closing of the mine prompted further debate about the conduct and impact of the project. 

Galindo, Jimena ; Gaytan, Victoria, Latin America and the Caribbean’s grievous femicide case, Global Americans, 2019

Highlights the evidence that in 32 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean at least 3,529 women were victims of femicide in 2018. According to the report by ECLAC, the five countries with the highest rates of femicide in Latin America are: El Salvador (6.8 femicides per 100,000 women), Honduras (5.1), Bolivia (2.3), Guatemala (2.0) and the Dominican Republic (1.9). In the Caribbean, Guyana leads with 8.8 femicides per 100,000 women, followed by Saint Lucia (4.4), Trinidad and Tobago (3.4), Barbados (3.4), and Belize (2.6).

Gatehouse, Mike, To end gender-based violence (GBV). Children Aid’s campaign in Latin America and the Caribbean, LAB, 2018

Report on grassroots initiatives promoted by Christian Aid and Latin America civil society aimed at developing a national system of data and statistics on violence against women in El Salvador. It also discusses women’s deprivation of citizen rights in the Dominican Republic; the struggle of women defending their community in the Brazilian Amazon; the need to protect the rights of LGBTIQ people in Colombia; the need to enhance the participation of women in the labour market in Guatemala, and to tackle gender based violence and its legitimisation by the Church in Bolivia.

Hooker, Juliet, Black and indigenous resistance in the Americas: from multiculturalism to racist Backlash, Lanham, U.S., Lexington Books, 2020, pp. 340

This book is the outcome of long term research by the Antiracist Research and Action Network of the Americas into rising racial intolerance, but also increasing resistance by both Black and indigenous people throughout the Americas. It covers six Latin American countries - Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico - as well as the US, and discusses the backlash against earlier gains in rights within nation states. The book argues that this nation-based strategy, pursued in a neo-liberal capitalist context, was inadequate and that the focus should now be on resisting ‘racial capitalism’ which bolsters white supremacy. The rise of militant anti-racial activism in the US and around the world in 2020 makes the book especially relevant.

Levenson-Estrada, Deborah, Trade Unionists against Terror: Guatemala City, 1954–1985, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1994, pp. 288

Includes account of 1984 workers’ occupation of Coca-Cola factory.

Mahony, Liam ; Eguren, Luis Enrique, Unarmed Bodyguards: International Accompaniment for the Protection of Human Rights, West Harford CT, Kumarian, 1997, pp. 288

Authoritative account by former-volunteers-turned-researchers of work of Peace Brigades International (PBI) in countries in Central and South America and in Asia. The authors interviewed generals connected with the Guatemala death squads to see how far PBI had inhibited the squads. See also: Liam Mahony, Human Rights Defenders Under Attack, London, Peace Brigades International-UK, pp. 20, marking PBI’s 25th anniversary, downloadable from: http://www.peacebrigades.org/publications/books-from-pbi/. For one volunteer’s more recent account; Louise Winstanley, ‘With Peace Brigades International in Colombia’, Clark, People Power: Unarmed Resistance and Global Solidarity (A. 1.b. Strategic Theory, Dynamics, Methods and Movements) , pp.108-11.

May, Rachel A., ”Surviving All Changes is Your Destiny”: Violence and Popular Movements in Guatemala, Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 26, no. 2, 1999, pp. 68-91

Examines the impact of violence on popular movements and how they adapted.

Menchu, Rigoberta, I Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala, edited and introduced by Elisabeth Burgos-Debray, London, Verso, 1984, pp. 252

North, Liisa I. ; Simmons, Alan B., Journeys of Fear: Refugee Return and National Transformation in Guatemala, ed. North, Liisa I., Simmons, Alan B., Montreal, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000, pp. 352

Just as the massive exodus of Guatemalans, mainly indigenous people, in the early 1980s was externally the most visible symptom of the terror that had befallen the country, so their organized return put into focus the need for and hopes of a transformation affecting land, gender, identity, and rights. Also includes Barry Levitt ‘Theorizing Accompaniment’, pp. 237-54.

Rosset, Peter M. ; Patel, Roy ; Courville, Michael, Promised Land: Competing Visions of Agrarian Reform, ed. Latin American Perspectives, , Oakland CA, Food First, 2006, pp. 380

Includes chapters on Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Guatemala, India, Mexico, South Africa and Zimbabwe (the latter refrains from discussing the human rights issues of the government sponsored post 1996 land occupations). Not all chapters discuss social movements, but the book does cover gender and indigenous issues.

Ruiz, Héctor, No Justice for Guatemalan Women: An Update Twenty Years After Guatemala's First Violence Against Women Law, Hastings Women’s Law Journal, Vol. 29, no. 1, 2018, pp. 101-124

This paper explores twenty years of legislation to protect women and the progress made. It also examines the attitudes towards women and girls that have been fueled by the thirty-six year internal conflict (1960-1996).

Stanfield, Pablo, When Spring turns to Winter, In McManus; Schlabach, Relentless Persistence: Nonviolent Action in Latin America (E. IV.1. General and Comparative Studies), Philadelphia PA, New Society Publishers, pp. 14-32

Covers earlier post-war period.

Tzul-Tzul, Galdys, Rebuilding communal life, NACLA Report on the Americas, Vol. 50, no. 4, 2018, pp. 404-407

It examines the communal rebuilding in Guatemala after the war (1970-1996) with a focus on the struggle of Ixil women to recover the remains of those killed during the war. Their activity is also centred on the resistance to the expropriation of land, weaving and textile expropriation, and the genetic modification of crops. It includes the testimonies of those who were victims of rape during the war period.

Walsh, Shannon ; Menjívar, Cecilia, What Guarantees Do We Have?” Legal Tolls and Persistent Impunity for Feminicide in Guatemala, Latin America Politics and Society, Vol. 58, no. 4, 2016, pp. 31-55

Despite laws intended to protect women, Guatemala has one of the highest levels of killings of women and impunity for violence against women in the world. This article examines obstacles in the justice system to processing cases of feminicide comparing two cases. It argues that the sociopolitical context of structural violence, widespread poverty, inequality, corruption, and normalization of gender violence against women, generates penalties, or “legal tolls” on victims' families. These tolls of fear and time (the need to overcome fear of retaliation and the extraordinary time and effort it takes to do so in a corrupt and broken system) undermine efforts by victims to find a way through the justice system.

See also https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2017/gender-violence-in-guatemala/index.html