Women's Rights

The years of violence and repression have resulted in increased poverty among women. Economic and social indicators are much worse for women than men in Guatemala. Although much improvement has been made, women in Guatemala still struggle to find equal footing in society. Women continue to have limited options for their roles, but it is widening everyday.

Women’s groups estimate that over half the labor force is female, yet most women are employed in the informal sector as domestic help, artisans, farm workers, and factory workers. Females represent only 19 percent of the formal labor force. Because of the war waged throughout Guatemala in the 1970s and 1980s, 38 percent of urban women are widows and 56 percent of rural women are widows. These women and other women whose husbands have been “disappeared” become wage earners. Some women work in the informal sector in their village; others move to Guatemala City or other urban areas to find employment. An estimated one-half of the heads of household in El Mesquito slum in Guatemala City are women. The health and education indicators also reveal the difficulty of life for Guatemalan women. Among all Guatemalan women the illiteracy rate is 55 percent; among rural women it increases to 85 percent. The maternal morbidity rate is the highest in Latin American as is the life expectancy for women.

Latin American political culture reinforces the traditional roles of wife and mother for women. In Guatemala, as in other countries in Latin America, machismo results in special privileges for males in society. Women are responsible for socialization of children; they are the guardian of moral values within the context of the home. Internalizing their prescribed social role, they are often passive and subservient, not because the are less capable or intelligent but because they lack experience outside the home. A majority of women in Guatemala have little or no formal education. Many indigenous women do not speak Spanish, only their indigenous language.

Women are not exempted from violence. Latin American human rights activist Dr. Orlando Garcia writes “Latin American men have traditionally been the victims of war; now it is women who, because of their political activism or because of their sexual vulnerability, are increasingly the targets of sadistic military and police officials. These are not crimes of passion, but the crimes of politics gone mad. And women are the easiest targets-our mothers, our wives, our sisters.” Women who are jailed often suffer gender-related violence which may take the form of rape, strip searches, verbal harassment, or other types of physical violence. In spite of rape, torture and threats, women have continued to be an active force for human rights.

Gender-related violence happens in the home and in work situations. Women endure abysmal working conditions in factories. Not only are many jobs not open to females and salaries less than their male co-workers are offered if they do find employment, but often women are subjected to sexual advances from supervisors. In the home as well, women are victims of domestic violence. Out of every ten women murdered in Guatemala, four are killed by their husbands.

In 2001, Amnesty International began collecting data on the number of female killings annually. In 2001, 222 women were murdered and in 2004, that number doubled. Increasing evidence concerns some that large numbers of women are tortured, raped, dismembered or brutalized before or after being killed. In femicide, the systematic killing of women, the use of extreme violence is as an expression of misogyny. In Guatemala, a male-dominated society that was heavily militarized during 36 years of civil war, thousands of men carry weapons and are no strangers to extreme violence. More Guatemalan women have been able to go out to work, stay longer in education, and express themselves more freely than ever before. Although prostitutes and female gang members are most at risk, all women live with perpetual fear of a violent, sudden death. The violence continues because there is no respect for the body of a woman. People feel they can treat women however they want. Also a lack of impunity; out of more than 500 cases in 2004, just one ended in conviction. The Guatemalan government has failed to adopt the most basic steps to help solve these murders and ultimately prevent future killings; a lack of interest by state authorities, failure to collect evidence and endemic corruption all feed the problem of impunity.