Out From the Shadows
"Let's put an end to impunity": Program on sexual violence during armed conflict in Latin America.
During a recent visit to Guatemala, a longtime friend and colleague told us that for her, justice meant "living without the shadow of anguish." Guatemala is a country with many unhealed wounds, after a brutal 36-year long armed conflict left over 200,000 people dead and millions deeply traumatized. And hidden in one of the darkest shadows is the systematic sexual abuse that women - in particular poor, indigenous women - suffered at the hands of the military and other armed actors. Women's bodies were destroyed as a means to humiliate and "pacify" communities, tearing apart the social fabric.
Women have lived in silence with this particular anguish for the past twenty years, ashamed and isolated, fearing stigmatization and blame by their husbands, families, communities, and society if their secret trauma ever came to light. Several years ago a few women began to step out from the shadows and speak publicly about what happened to them during the war. This led to the formation of the Advocates for Change consortium, which brought together local groups to work with women survivors of sexual violence in several areas of the country, supporting their search for healing as a necessary stepping stone along the path to justice.
Sixty-five women survivors are engaged in a process of healing and empowerment, supported by psychologists and women's rights activists from Advocates for Change. They are working together in mutual support groups, accompanied by trained mental health promoters from their own communities, as well as receiving individual psychosocial care and home visits. As they are listened to, accepted and accompanied, these women are gradually losing their fear of talking about the violence they experienced. They have started to piece together what happened to them, and understand the significance of sexual violence within the context of war.
They are beginning to understand that this terrible violence was not their fault. Pain was inflicted upon them, intentionally. Rape was used as a strategy, as a weapon of war. And part of their healing process includes understanding that violence within Guatemala's history of exploitation, colonialism, racism and patriarchy.
In a country where the truth of what happened during the war has always been contested, with much remaining unspoken, the power of words cannot be underestimated. Women survivors are learning to use their voices, their own words, in their own languages, to understand what happened to them, as women and as indigenous people. They are expressing their pain, their rage, their guilt, their fears, and their hopes. They are reasserting their dignity, which was so brutally taken away from them years ago.
Women are discovering that the hurt they experienced was not inflicted only on them, it happened to many others. They are linking their own experiences to those of other women, and to their communities, and to their society as a whole. They are finding their place within Guatemalan society, as citizens, and they know that the wrongs visited on them must come to be viewed by all Guatemalans as an unacceptable injustice.
These women tell us that they are learning to feel, think and act as people who are capable of helping others. They no longer feel alone, isolated, or powerless. They are forming networks with other women survivors, and making their voices heard in national debates concerning restitution and reparation. Without forgetting, negating or repressing the past, they are moving forward from victims to authors of their own histories and futures, able to speak in their own name about their pain, and their hope.
In addition to the donations of thousands of Canadians, this program is supported by a grant from the Peace and Security Unit of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
| Reviewed November 7, 2006 |  |
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