WUNRN
GUATEMALA - SURVIVORS OF SEXUAL
VIOLENCE TESTIFY AT GENOCIDE TRIAL
Day 8 (April 2nd) of the genocide trial was extremely emotional and
difficult to get through. Ten courageous women, survivors of sexual violence,
shared their personal stories to the world. According to the prosecution 1,485
acts of sexual violence occurred against Ixiles women between 1982 and 1983.
Former Dictator and Head of State Efrain Ríos Montt and former G-2 Commander
Jose Mauricio Rodriguez are being tried for crimes against humanity,
specifically for genocide, which includes sexual violence.
April 2,
2013, was an historical moment not just for Guatemala but for the world,
in relation to connecting sexual violence with genocide.
It has only been recent
that sexual violence has received attention and recognized as a war crime. Due
to the sensitive nature of the testimonies extra steps were taken to protect
the identity of the women, their faces were completely covered and the judge
made a special request to all journalists not to publish the names or their
physical characteristics. Though the women who testified are clearly victims of
sexual violence, committed by the hands of military, the witnesses were visibly
concerned about disclosing their identities and had concerns about how their
family and community would react. Reportedly, lawyers for the Association for
Justice and Reconciliation (AJR) pleaded with the court on behalf of a witness
who begged that her name not be published,
“If my family finds out I will be beaten.
My family doesn’t know.” (NISGUA Blog).
Some of the most troubling
and impactful statements were the following:
“He grabbed me and stabbed me and I have
the scars still. I’m here to testify because I suffered, I was raped. For 3
nights I was there, I was raped. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t walk. They hit me
as if I was a ball. That’s what hurts me, they made me suffer. They covered my
son’s mouth. My son had blood coming out of his nose, his mouth, his eyes. My
son died. He raped me and then stabbed me and I still have the scars. Then he
left me with his companeros. I recuperated. Then I had to prepare their food. I
didn’t eat with them because I was scared.” (NISGUA Blog).
“My 17-year-old
daughter was a home with her younger siblings. The soldiers undressed her,
separated her legs and violently began to rape her in front of the younger
children, who were scared and crying.” (El
Pais)
Many of the women began
to cry while giving their vivid statements. Survivors of sexual violence find
it extremely difficult to give their testimonies, an experience often described
as a “second rape.” When taking the courageous step of speaking out many
survivors experience victim blaming, community backlash, and a feeling of
shame. The women who testified, acted courageously in giving their testimonies.
Victims of this form of torture and brutality face stigma and rejection from
their own communities when speaking out. As an act of solidarity and support,
allies were encouraged to attend the hearing. Therapists were at hand to
provide any assistance that the witnesses needed. Alarmingly, the defense
lawyers, shared with the press later that night that they didn’t understand how
these women testimonies had anything to do with the trial on genocide. To
briefly shed some light on how sexual violence relates to genocide, it is
important to understand the context and the transition that occurred once Ríos
Montt assumed power.
Sexual violence has historically
been seen as something that was unavoidable. It wasn’t until the Bosnian war
where widespread rape of women in the former Yugoslavia was given proper
attention by the UN Security Council. In 1992 the Security Council declared the
massive and systemic rape of women, particularly among Muslim women, as an
international crime. In 2002 the Rome Statute of the International Criminal
Court included rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy,
enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable
gravity as a crime against humanity when it is committed in a widespread or
systematic way. Recently, as mentioned in a previous blog post, Justice
is Non-Negotiable, fifteen Mayan women testified before the Guatemalan
court last year in a tribunal of conscious on sexual slavery. Several women
based organization in Guatemala conducted an in-depth study called, Ni
Olvido Ni Silencio which translates to, I will Not Forget or be Silenced,
in which women who were used as sex slaves during the civil war were
interviewed. Many groups and individuals are working tirelessly to bring to
light these horrible crimes and to clearly demonstrate that,
“Sexual violence in conflict needs
to be treated as the war crime that it is; it can no longer be treated as an
unfortunate collateral damage of war,” (UN Special Representative on Sexual
Violence in Conflict, Ms. Zainab Hawa Bangura).
The outcome of the
Guatemalan genocide trial will hold significant weight and will hopefully set a
high precedent in how war crimes are handled in the future. Various women
stated that they made the decision to share their stories because they want
justice and to ensure that these crimes never happens again. One woman stated,
“I’m glad to be here testifying
today, that the law is with us today. If justice is done, I thank you.” (NISGUA
Blog)
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CITATION
Outreach Programme on the Rwanda Genocide and The United Nations. Background
Information on Sexual Violence. http://www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/rwanda/about/bgsexualviolence.shtml
NISGUA. Genocide on Trial, Day 8: Women survivors of sexual violence, “Your truth is our truth,” April 2, 2013 http://www.nisgua.blogspot.com/2013/04/genocide-on-trial-day-8-women-survivors.html