Las Mujeres

Washington Office on Latin America (http://www.wola.org/) reports that "since 2001, thousands of young women and girls have been killed in Guatemala in an epidemic of unsolved murders. According to police statistics, the number of women slain has risen steadily from 383 in 2003, to 531 in 2004, to 665 in 2005. While there is debate over the final numbers for 2006, estimates place the number around 589. So far (as of Aug. 17) this year, more than 250 cases have been reported. The majority of the victims were young, poor women under the age of 40. Many were students, housewives, factory workers, domestic employees, or workers in the informal sector; some of the victims were professionals." (This clipping is from a different Guatemalan Newspaper)

Clearly, there was need to gather yesterday for the International Day against Violence toward Women. CEDEPCA (where I am currently teaching "Theologia desde Las Mujeres") hosted a celebration for which women arrived from all over Guatemala. They talked with one another and heard a speaker on the theme.

Violence against women takes many forms: physical, economic, social, political, legal- but really all are very interrelated in a system, society, and culture of violence toward women that has deep roots in the history of this country (and world more broadly, but we'll save that for another day).

Last week I asked the women in the class a question about what their communities are like today, and what they hoped their communities would one day be. The women told stories for over an hour and would have likely continued all day: one story after another of the violence, drugs, murders, and threats in their neighborhoods- their cousin, their niece, their daughter... and most of them have their own personal stories to share. Nearly every woman I talk to here tells me of an alcoholic father, or abusive husband--doesn't know their father, or would rather not--the tragic implications of a machismo culture cultivated by a colonial past and more recently a 40 year civil war. I do not presume to have any easy answers, rather I admit that there are none, but I do know impunity is a huge problem here- rule of law. One sign of hope is that the congress here just approved the presense of the International Commission to Combat Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG). For my part, I also believe the headline of the article above "When a study changes one's life" and hope that in some way the class with these women offers space for reflection, thinking, healing, discovery, and knowledge that is transformational in their lives and thier communities.

I pray that we together would growth in faith and hope that God is active here and that we are participants in that activity- that faith rather than fear would re-shape these communities.