Aftermath : women and gender issues in postconflict Guatemala

After a historical overview of the violence and of the Guatemalan army"s counterinsurgency strategies, which included sexual violence against women, the report addresses: the physical, psychological, social, and economic impact of the violence on women and family; women"s experience of exile; and women in the political arena. The question of civilian security is also examined. During the violence, women were raped, tortured, and killed, sometimes because of their ideals and political or social participation, sometimes in massacres or other indiscriminate acts. To this day, women who witnessed violence or lost family members continue to suffer psychological and physical ailments, including sadness, prolonged mourning, psychosomatic problems, eating disorders, and feelings of injustice, helplessness, isolation, and loneliness. Economically, thousands of women were widowed and thus became the sole breadwinners for their children, a task made more difficult by the fact that the scorched-earth policy of the counterinsurgency left them in a severe economic plight, forcing some to tend the fields ("men"s labor") or to branch out into commercial farming, thereby aggravating tensions over traditional patrilineal land conveyances and ownership patterns. Moreover, many women, widows in particular, lack access to credit because of the requirement that fathers or husbands cosign loans. The civil violence and the worsening of rural poverty in the war"s wake also promoted a still continuing pattern of migration of women to urban areas, where most are employed in domestic work and, to a lesser extent, service industries. In the early 1980s, women benefitted from refugee aid provided by the Mexican government and the United Nations. Some participated in courses on literacy, reproductive health, human rights, and women"s educational rights. Many learned Spanish for the first time, were taught basic literacy, and worked with other women in small-scale production projects. However, after the resettlement of refugees began in the late 1980s the gender training in the camps was lost in the process of reintegration. The same seems to be the case of the Communities of Populations in Resistance -- peasant families who fled their homes in the early 1980s and established covert mobile communities in the remote areas of northern El Quiche. Thousands of indigenous women sought refuge from political violence in urban areas, where, however, they are pressured to relinquish their Indian identity. The violence of the early 1980s pushed an unprecedented number of Maya and Ladina women into the political arena. A proportionally fair number of women serve in elected offices at the departmental and national levels (less so at the municipal level), catapulted either by membership in women"s organizations or by direct family connections, though in the latter case the woman is largely a proxy for a deceased male family member. The Peace Accords include specific agreements regarding the rights of women, and since 1996 the national assembly has publicized an array of laws upholding women"s rights. (Nearly every woman political figure interviewed for the study maintains that the lag in basic education for girls is the greatest source of gender inequality in Guatemala.) In May 2000, a Secretariat of Women was created by government decree. Even so, women"s organizations feel short-changed, because a secretariat depends directly on the executive branch of government. Despite some promising and tangible signs of advancement, many obstacles prevent women"s rejuvenation in the wake of Guatemala"s long war. It is recommended that in its programming USAID: (1) consider the long-term consequences of state-sponsored violence by supporting organizations that address conflict resolution, cultural reconstruction, long-term mental-health issues among victims, and personal security for women and children; (2) support local programs, especially in such areas as alcoholism, family violence, sexual crimes, conflict resolution, cultural reconstruction, poverty (especially among Maya), the causes of the war, long- term grief and depression, and cultural loss resulting from urban migration and displacement; (3) avoid "ghettoizing" solutions that overemphasize gender or "women"s" projects at the expense of other areas of need; and (4) realize that a truly gender-specific response demands recourse for both women and men.