How War Puts Women Under Siege

 Rosemary Gonzalez was murdered in 2009, the victim of a war that ended in 1996. One day, 17-year-old Rosemary said good-bye to her mother Betty, walked out of their small house on the outskirts of Guatemala City and was never seen alive again.

Rosemary and Betty lived together in the poor neighborhood of Barcenas, under the constant shadow of violence. Across Guatemala, nearly 5,000 women have been killed in the past decade, attacked for the simple fact of being women. The women of Barcenas know well this fear—they live at the epicenter of this crisis.

In Guatemala, generations of women have faced murderous violence, but at its core is war. Now, the same dynamic is emerging in Iraq.

Guatemalan Women Under Siege

Why was Rosemary Gonzalez killed? Why are Guatemalan women the targets of a ten- year rape and killing spree? The answers go beyond the motives of any one culprit.

For 36 years, Guatemala was roiled by a brutal civil war that the United Nations characterized as genocide, mainly against Mayan Indigenous People. Through the years of the conflict, tens of thousands of Guatemalan women and girls were raped, tortured and murdered. These were not attacks carried out randomly; violence against women was deliberately calculated by U.S.-backed fighters to traumatize families and destroy the capacity of communities to resist and organize.

Mayan women were targeted because they are the lynchpins of their families and communities. In many instances, women were gang-raped in front of their families. Pregnant women faced specific atrocities, tortured and murdered in order to cut off the next generation of the community.

Multiple human rights investigations have found evidence that this violence against women was part of a systematic counterinsurgency strategy by the government. Over one million members of the Guatemalan army, paramilitary forces and police were trained to attack women with rape, mutilation and torture. Today's attacks reproduce the gruesome tactics of these wartime atrocities.

Many Guatemalan feminists say that is because the perpetrators were never brought to justice once the peace accords were signed in 1996. They were simply re-absorbed into society, taking on new roles as police or in powerful criminal gangs that infiltrated many government agencies.

Meanwhile, violence against women continues to be tolerated. Women are blamed for their own attacks, for having walked alone at night or for the style of their dress.

The Latin American women's movement has given this crisis a name: femicide. It is defined by various forms of gender-based violence against women, including murder, and characterized by impunity for perpetrators and a lack of justice processes for victims. It occurs in conditions of social upheaval, armed conflict, violence between powerful rival gangs and militias, rapid economic transformation and the demise of traditional forms of state law enforcement.

For Guatemalan women, particularly those who are young, poor or Indigenous, the war against them continues -- and Rosemary is one of its victims.

Young women in Rosemary's community of Barcenas have few options other than backbreaking work in the maquilas (sweatshops) for meager pay. After long shifts, they walk home at night, looking over their shoulders for the attack they know could come at any moment.

Rosemary wanted something different. She had studied hard in school and had dreams of university. Rosemary was looking for a job outside of the maquilas, hoping to build a better life for herself and for her mother. Instead, her life was cut short. Now, her mother Betty has devoted her own life to bringing justice for Rosemary, demanding answers from judges and police and rallying her community to her support.