In March 2025, Catalina, Inés and Aura were en route from Guatemala City to their homes in Ixcán, a remote part of Guatemala’s Quiché state.

They had travelled to the capital with other community members to demand—yet again—that the government make good on its promise to finish building a public hospital in their municipality. Construction of the hospital had been delayed for almost a decade, depriving people of their access to health care. 

On a particularly dangerous stretch of the Atlántico highway, a transport truck collided with the microbus that Catalina, Inés and Aura were travelling in. Tragically, three community members were killed. Catalina, Inés and Aura were injured and hospitalized for weeks. 

Traffic accidents, like this one, are common in Guatemala—especially on roads connecting remote areas to urban centres. More than 40 per cent of all road accidents occur in rural areas and are a leading cause of death in Guatemala. The roads between Ixcán and Guatemala City are treacherous; poorly maintained by successive governments failing to invest in infrastructure in predominantly Indigenous rural areas. This accident lays bare the human cost of government neglect in certain regions—certain communities—in Guatemala. 

It is a sad irony that Catalina, Inés, Aura and their allies assumed extreme, preventable risk that day in the name of improving their community’s access to health care.

Catalina, Inés and Aura are all members of Asociación Red de Organizaciones de Mujeres del Ixcán (ROMI), an association of hundreds of Indigenous women’s groups in Ixcán and an Inter Pares counterpart. 

Sharing a border with Mexico, Ixcán is an isolated region home to Indigenous Mayan peoples, including Q'eqchi', Poqomchi and Q’anjob’al speakers. These communities experienced harsh violence and displacement during the civil war from 1960 to 1996—but they were also centres of resistance. Many women involved with ROMI are survivors of the war and contributed to negotiations that enabled the return of displaced people to their lands in Ixcán.

Despite the relative cessation of state-sponsored terror, bombs, massacres and displacement seen during the war, women's bodies continue to be a battleground in Ixcán. Machismo and patriarchal values are predominant and violence against women, including sexual violence, is normalized and common. Cases are under-reported and under-documented. Justice and accountability are rare. 

Drawing on their experience of community organizing during the conflict, Indigenous women from across Ixcán formed ROMI in 2004. Their aim: to foster a culture free of violence against women. ROMI works toward this by supporting survivors of gender-based violence, educating women on their rights, strengthening women's local political leadership and uplifting their essential role in defending their territories from extractive industries. 

Inter Pares has been active in Ixcán since the late 1980s. We first supported Project Counselling Service (PCS), which accompanied refugees in the camps in Mexico and through their return to Guatemala. In 2018, we started our direct partnership with ROMI. 

Given Ixcán’s isolation from the rest of the country, and how dangerous and difficult it is for women to access services in urban centres, ROMI became the region’s primary resource for women survivors of violence. ROMI members are first responders for survivors, triaging cases and helping those trying to access care and justice.

ROMI is organized into an administrative committee and coordinating board that meet to plan activities in their communities.

Despite their vast experience and wide geographic reach, the number of cases of sexual and gender-based violence in Ixcán often outpace the support and expertise that ROMI can provide.

Survivors need medical attention, psychological support, legal accompaniment—sometimes even a safe place to stay. If a survivor needs support that ROMI cannot offer, their options are to travel long distances on dangerous roads to access it or go without. In these cases, ROMI members go with survivors who choose to travel to seek services—such is their dedication to their mission.

Lack of publicly funded services and medical care in Ixcán puts survivors at increased risk of harm. In a time of need, they must do a calculation: is receiving the service worth the risk required to access it? 

Ten years ago, ROMI declared: enough. Something had to change for women in Ixcán. 

Looking to other organizations in Guatemala supporting survivors of violence, they saw a possibility for a different way forward: they could advocate for the government to establish a Centro de Apoyo Integral para Mujeres Sobrevivientes de Violencia (CAIMUS), an Integrated Support Centre for Women Survivors of Violence, in Ixcán.

In 1991, over twenty years earlier, Grupo Guatemalteco de Mujeres (GGM) set up the first CAIMUS in the country.

CAIMUS holistically support women survivors of violence with medical attention, psychological and legal support, economic empowerment and training, and temporary shelter. While the centres are managed by local organizations with experience addressing sexual and gender-based violence, their construction and operations are funded by different levels of municipal and national government. There are 17 CAIMUS now supporting women across the country.

ROMI knew what survivors in Ixcán needed and how to provide it—they essentially already acted as a CAIMUS, making them a perfect candidate to manage one. But even with this experience bolstering them, they knew that convincing the government to set up a CAIMUS in Ixcán would be an uphill battle: it wasn’t traditionally interested in issues that affected women. And, while municipal and national governments commit to funding CAIMUS across the country, they often drag their heels to fulfill these promises.

Members of ROMI speak during a municipal health working group to advocate for a CAIMUS. ROMI’s participation is significant in these traditionally male-dominated spaces.

So ROMI mobilized. 

ROMI sought out allies in the municipal government to make sure their request moved forward. In 2024, ROMI met with Lucrecia Peinado, soon after she became Guatemala’s first lady, to lay out the urgency of establishing a CAIMUS in Ixcán. This conversation was a breakthrough for ROMI, as previous governments had been reticent to their calls.

“We made clear that a CAIMUS would provide better attention to women victims of violence and guarantee that they can carry on,” recalls Ángela González, member of the coordinating board at ROMI.

Ángela González (centre) sits with ROMI members during a meeting with Inter Pares staff in 2025.

ROMI also connected with organizations that manage other CAIMUS to learn from their experience. ROMI is in touch with Ixqik, a women-led organization from Petén that has managed a CAIMUS since 2016. Like Ixcán, Petén is a remote and isolated region neglected by the national government. 

“These alliances allow us to move forward,” shares Ángela.

Meanwhile, with Inter Pares’ support, ROMI continued their larger mission in Ixcán: to improve the status and wellbeing of women. For example, ROMI coordinates events on International Women’s Day and the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. On these occasions, ROMI invites municipal and community leaders, allies and women from across Ixcán to share the challenges women face in their communities and develop strategies to address them. As one of ROMI's sole funders, Inter Pares’ steady support ensures that women from Ixcán can move the conversation forward.

Members of ROMI gather during a municipal celebration on the International Day to End Violence Against Women in November 2019.

After nearly a decade, ROMI’s advocacy paid off: the government approved their request for a CAIMUS in Ixcán in 2024.

This was a huge win, not only for survivors—who will be able to get support closer to home—but also for ROMI, who can now expand the breadth and depth of services they offer. 

At the same time, ROMI won another longtime battle with the government: getting a Defensoría de la Mujer Indígena (DEMI) for Ixcán, a Defense Unit for Indigenous Women. While the DEMI will operate independently of the CAIMUS, having it in the region will strengthen ROMI’s ability to support Indigenous women with culturally appropriate services in their own languages. ROMI already was offering this kind of support to Indigenous women—ROMI members are Indigenous and campesina women from across Ixcán, fluent in the languages spoken in the region. 

Achieving both a DEMI and the CAIMUS sends a clear message to Indigenous women in Ixcán: you matter and your experiences are priority. This message is especially significant in a country where Indigenous peoples’ voices and experience are, and have historically been, excluded. 

The work to establish a CAIMUS in Ixcán is ongoing. ROMI has made it through a time-consuming process laden with paperwork to ensure the government releases funds for the construction of the centre by the end of 2025. In the meantime, ROMI is responsible for hiring staff and developing care manuals. If everything goes as planned, ROMI should be able to open the CAIMUS’ doors in 2026.

When Catalina, Inés and Aura got on the bus that day, they were feeling hopeful: change was coming.

And it is. Because of the tireless advocacy of ROMI and other women’s organizations in Guatemala, the needle is moving, little by little for women—particularly Indigenous women—against incredible odds. 

There is still much to be done, but if ROMI’s experience pushing for more than 10 years for a CAIMUS exemplifies anything, it’s that juntas lo lograremos. Together, we will move forward.