Citation

Zur J. Focus Gend. 1993; 1(2): 27-30.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1993, Oxfam)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

12345216

Abstract

In Guatemala, government-sponsored terrorism directed at Mayan villagers resulted in at least 122,000 deaths and 18,000 "disappearances" during the period 1975-85. Even today, "low intensity warfare" in the form of random acts of terrorism continue. Thus, in the past 20 years, 120,000 women have been widowed, 11,000 in the province of El Quiche alone. This violence extended to threats of death directed toward women who joined a human rights organization, to the rape of women by their husbands' murderers and the further murder or kidnapping of their relatives. Groups of women were split between widows and married women, and women had to recreate their roles in society. The resulting reformation of family life led to an irretrievably altered relationship with the past. Survivors had to cope with pervasive fear, with a new understanding of their vulnerability, and with an inability to fulfill their obligations towards the dead who were buried in clandestine graves. The women who coped the best were those who learned to comprehend the violence in political terms through participation in human rights and women's groups and those who lived in villages where the dead were exhumed and properly buried. The psychological pain suffered by the women often manifested itself in physical ways and added to the suffering they realized from overwork and poor nutrition.

Language: en