Decades after Guatemala’s Silent Holocaust, these Indigenous women are fighting to bring their rapists to justice
—named after the military outposts in eastern Guatemala where the crimes were committed—was a watershed moment in the transitional justice process. In a historic ruling, the court not only sentenced the men who orchestrated the violence, it held the state responsibile for the use of rape as a weapon of war.from Rwanda to the former Yugoslavia
Maya Achí women perform an invocation of gratitude after the reading of the sentence on Jan. 24 2022 in Guatemala City, Guatemala.For the Maya Achi survivors who testified in court, the ordeal they faced in the early 1980s changed the course of their lives. The perpetrators followed a similar pattern for each crime: they killed or “disappeared” the women’s husbands before raping the women, many of whom were already pregnant, and destroying their homes and belongings.
The stigma that the women carried back to their communities had a particularly pernicious effect on the women’s self-esteem. “We were asking them if their community knows about the sentencing,” González said. “They said ‘no, when we leave we won’t tell the truth, because it’s just a waste of time.’ Generally they receive many, many accusations. They are very stigmatised in their community.”
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