In the many years i have been an activist, i have found it particularly disturbing how many men blame women, still in this day of info, for getting raped or battered. I see who it is addressing issues around women's bodies and it is not men. I have encountered both women and men opposing abortion, but i wonder how it is not a women's issue. Perhaps, Doug, you are being contrary.
I see the acceleration of physical abuse, abandonment of mothers, sexual assault to be directly related to the growth of colonialist narco free trade, the destruction of land based cultures and the valuing of competition and profit over healthy relationships. This applies in the states, but to an excessive degree, among refugees and others fleeing by the thousands various catastrophes.
For the first time in human history, over half the earth's population lives in urban areas, increasingly massive, horrid slums. The total breakdown of loving family relations, desperate poverty and alienation contributes to the increase in human trafficking, child soliders, drug running, etc. It is evangleical right wingers who are hitting these new slums with their prostlytizing and collection of tithes, whether in Lagos, Congo or Mexico City, Mexico. These well funded creeps oppose aobortion, yet maintain the climate that contributes to the growth of corporate profits from the sales of arms, prostitution and drugs. How tidy.
Rape is rampant and the resulting pregnancies are impossible for many victims to abort. Is this a man's issue? Perhaps due to the fact that men impregnate when either having sex or raping. What are men going to do about it here and elsewhere?
The term "femicide" is new, tho the phenomenon is not. I see it as spreading hand in glove with free trade. We all stand to lose. Few Americans even pay attention to this major terror impacting primarily Indigenous women and women of color. It creeps ever closer to our own back door.
In peaceful struggle, swaneagle -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Guatemala More Impunity!
© AFP
Two Indigenous Children Grieve Upon Learning of Their Mother's Murder. Guatemala's population is 60% Mayan. Added Sep. 21 2005
Se incrementa feminicidio en Guatemala.
Femicide Continues to Rise in Guatemala.
The latest statistics regarding the femicide in Guatemala indicate that as of
September, 2005, the female murder rate jumped 26.3% from 2004 levels.
>From January to September of 2004, 336 women were murdered. During the same
period in 2005, the figure was 458 victims killed.
Andrea Barrios, of the Center for Legal Action in Human Rights (CALDH) said:
"The state has not provided an environment of safety for women, which is
reflected in these high rates of murder."
Soraya Long, the director of The Center for Justice and International Law
(CEJIL) indicated that 'it is important that women's rights groups keep up the
pressure on the Guatemalan government, which has been dismissive of the issue of
femicide.'
Long:
"Impunity in government entities has caused the Citizenry to loose faith in the
system of justice."
Hilda Morales, ambassador of conscience of Amnesty International stated:
"The indifference of the state in the face of this outrage defiles the memory of the victims and affects the dignity of their families, who have to face the corruption of government agencies when they seek justice." According to monitoring of press reports on murders by the Cerigua agency, femicide victims are most often shot, and they are typically between 18 & 40 years old. - CimacNoticias Sep.14, 2005 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Added Sep. 17 2005
Foto - Paco Rodríguez-VDG
Diputada Guatemalteca denuncia situación de la mujer.
Galicia ['Spain'] - During a Sep. 13, 2005 visit to the headquarters of the Galician National Block (BNC), Guatemalan Congressional Deputy Alba Maldonado denounced conditions for women across Latin America. Since 1960 Deputy Maldonado has been an leader in activism against murder and for human rights. Accompanied by Ana Miranda, European spokes-person for the BNC, Deputy Maldonado stated that between 2001 and August 15, 2005, 1,897 women have been murdered in Guatemala. Only 5 cases had been resolved by the government. According to the National Police, 436 women have been murdered to date [in the first 9 months] of 2005. Maldonado explained the historical context of the problem: "We freed our-selves of a [civil]war that lasted 36 years; the peace accords were never honored by the government; nobody [human rights violators] ever went to trial; and we continue with the 'culture of death' - which is reflected by these statistics." Maldonado went on to state that there are differences in how women and men are murdered in Guatemala: "Women are murdered after being tortured, dismembered, and, of course, raped." Maldonado's political party, the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity attributes weak government investigations to the continuing wave of impunity. On September 15 Deputy Maldonado presented a complaint against the Guatemalan government's inaction to a meeting of Spain's parliament in Madrid. Its essence: "It isn't logical that, in a nation of 12 million inhabitants, 2 million are armed." LibertadLatina Note:
Deputy Alba Maldonado's analysis is a 100% accurate description of the root causes of a femicide that today causes 10 times more deaths of women than the Juarez, Mexico femicide crisis. See Also:
Juarez Femicide
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Added Oct. 15, 2005
Published June 17, 2005
Niñas continuan siendo víctimas de Explotación Sexual. Casa Alianza: Esta vez fueron rescatadas dos niñas Guatemaltecas y una Hondureña, en un bar en la zona 12 de la ciudad de Guatemala.
(Thre young girls are rescued by Casa Alianza from a bar/brothel in Guatemala City.)
June 20 2005 Florida A 16 Year Old Mayan Girl from Guatemala, Previously Freed by Police From 'Coyotes' (People Smugglers) Who Had Kidnapped Her... Hung Herself at Her Family Home in Boynton Beach. She Could Not Stand Her 'Torment,' Which She Had Not Shared with Family Members.
------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 20 2005 Guatemala A Coast Guard Patrol Detained 17 Female and 65 Male Migrants from Ecuador. 182 Ecuadorian Migrants Have been Intercepted in Guatemalan Waters in 2005.
------------------------------------------------------------------------ Stories From the NBC/ Telemundo TV Network Program 'Al Rojo Vivo.' ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Added June 10, 2005
"In Guatemala, a Small country not Long Emerged from Three Decades of Civil War, Women and Girls are Being Murdered Faster than Anyone in Authority Can Cope."
"Deborah Tomas Vineda, aged 16, was kidnapped, raped, and cut to pieces with a chainsaw, allegedly because she refused to become the girlfriend of a local gang member. Her sister Olga, just 11 years old, died alongside her. The raped and mutilated body of Andrea Contreras Bacaro, 17, was found wrapped in a plastic bag and thrown into a ditch, her throat cut, her face and hands slashed, with a gunshot wound to the head. The word "vengeance" had been gouged into her thigh. Sandra Palma Godoy, 17, said to have witnessed a killing in her home town, was missing for a week before her decomposing body was found next to a local football pitch. Her breasts, eyes and heart had been mutilated, reports said."
- BBC News
Added June 10, 2005 Also from BBC News: Guatemala murder jail terms cut 23 Mar 2005 Challenging Guatemala's macho culture 15 Apr 2004 Murderers prey on Guatemalan women 06 Dec 2003 Guatemala women 'abused' 12 Feb 2002 Country profile: Guatemala 01 Jun 2005 Timeline: Guatemala 12 Mar 2005 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Added June 10, 2005 "We have the right to a life without Violence!" - Femicide in Guatemala. ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Added March 19, 2005 Human Rights Defender Sara Poroj and staff of the human rights organization Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo (GAM), Group of Mutual Support have been intimidated and threatened to stop work to exhume secret mass graves of victims of 699 anti-Mayan massacres during the 1980s to 1990s Civil War. ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Added February 9, 2005 Guatemalan Human Rights Commission Begins "Defend Women's Right to Live!" Campaign
A March 6-14, 2005 U.S. based delegation is being formed to Demand that Guatemala's Government end the murder of women with Impunity! Over 1,200 women have been murdered Since 2001. In 2004, 527 women were killed, (a 28% Increase).
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