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 Guatemala Human Rights Delegation Report – “Women’s Right to Live Campaign”
Janett Forte, IWH Program Director, and a team of 14 other people including VCU School of Social Work faculty member Dr Karen Rotabi, VCU MSW Alumnae Abby Dini, current BSW student Priscilla Witwer and 3 staff from the Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Action Alliance ncluding Beth Leftwich, Debbie Haynes, and Carmen Williams participated in the August ’09 delegation which explored violence against women, including femicide.
The work included meetings with 15 groups and individuals, receiving testimonies of violence survivors and human rights advocates. Currently, Guatemala is one of the worst examples in the world of this crime. The violent acts frequently include torture and ritualistic abuses with women’s bodies being left in public locations as a message to the community and striking fear, thereby making it a form of terrorism. Since 2000, over 5500 Guatemalan women have been brutally murdered. These gender-based crimes have been characterized as "femicide" because they target females. 98% of the crimes go unpunished.
The team of 7 from Richmond is continuing to meet and strategize ways to raise awareness and increase support for women’s human rights in Guatemala.
View Janett Forte's Delegation Summary Powerpoint Presentation
Virginia Commonwealth University social work professor Karen Rotabi has put together an online photo-journal about the delegation.
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SUPPORT - Re-introduction of the International Violence Against Women Act (I-VAWA) Living free from violence is a human right. Yet millions of women and girls around the world encounter rape, domestic abuse, mutilation and other forms of gender-based violence. Too often no one is held accountable for these crimes. With your help, we can urge governments to hold perpetrators responsible and put an end to this cycle of violence against women. Both the US Senate & House are working on reintroduction and passage by Congress, this fall, of the International Violence Against Women Act (I-VAWA). The Institute will be tracking this activity and will send alerts and action requests and post information on our website. If you would like more information you can visit:
Amnesty International USA, Family Violence Prevention Fund and Women Thrive are three organizations leading a nation-wide campaign to end violence against women worldwide with the centerpiece of this campaign: the International Violence Against Women Act, a bill that, if passed, would help millions of women in developing countries escape violence and poverty.
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To learn more about the socio-political context of violence against women in Guatemala visit, Guatemala Human Rights Commission (GHRC) website at:
http://www.ghrc-usa.org/Programs/ForWomensRighttoLive.htm
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Follow the Guatemala Human Rights Commission Delegation - "Women's Right to Live" via my blog at http://vcu-wh-guatemala.blogspot.com
At the top of the page you will see a button FOLLOW BLOG - click on that and sign up as a follower - or just view the blog via the address I provided.
I posted reflections and experiences from August 1 through August 9, 2009
 Janett Forte, IWH Program Director, and a team of twelve other people including VCU School of Social Work, University of Central Florida and University of Nevada Las Vegas social work faculty, students and activists from across the United States will participate in this Guatemala Human Rights Delegation (GHRD).
Please join us as we travel to Guatemala in August to learn firsthand how violence against women (VAW) is impacting the women and families of Guatemala. Violence against women in Guatemala that has claimed the lives of over 4,000 young women since 2000. While about a third of the murders are related to domestic violence, investigations suggest a less personal pattern in the other cases. Such brutality creates a political instability and a climate of terror, the apparent objective of the brutal murders is to send a message of terror and intimidation. This intimidation, may lead women to retreat from participation in public life, gained with so much effort, and limit them selves again to the private world, abandoning their indispensable role in national development.
Our delegation
The delegation focuses on women’s rights and the ongoing efforts to end discrimination and violence against women in Guatemala. We will meet with individuals and community groups that have courageously spoken out against gender-based violence, as well as explore the broader context in which this violence takes place. Through meetings in the major cities and travel to rural communities, we will see how Guatemala’s history and current human rights situation affect these efforts to secure women’s rights.
Our commitment to take action:
As important as our presence in Guatemala will be, we are also making a commitment to share what we have learned with the people we know back home. The blog is a way for me to share our experiences, raise awareness, and increase support for human rights in Guatemala and the work of GHRC after our return.
Violence Against Women as a Women's Health Issue:
Gender-based violence, or violence against women (VAW), is a major public health and human rights problem throughout the world. Worldwide it has been estimated that is as serious a cause of death and incapacity among women of reproductive age as cancer, and a greater cause of ill-health than traffic accidents and malaria combined, according to the World Health Organization.
For more information visit, Guatemala Human Rights Commission (GHRC) website at:
http://www.ghrc-usa.org/Programs/ForWomensRighttoLive.htm
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