Where women are killed by their own families
Where women are killed by their own families
By Candace Piette
BBC News, Guatemala City
5 December 2015
Every year an estimated 66,000 women are murdered worldwide. One of the countries with the highest rate of violence against women is Guatemala - so why is it such a dangerous place to be female?
"We are being killed by our fathers, brothers, stepfathers… the very people who are supposed to care for us," says Rebecca Lane, a feminist rapper in Guatemala City.
. . .
Guatemala has the third highest femicide rate in the world (after El Salvador and Jamaica) - between 2007 and 2012 there were 9.1 murders for every 100,000 women according to the National Guatemalan Police. And last year 846 women were killed in a population of little more than 15 million, says the State Prosecutors Office.
It seems the reason for this lies in the country's brutal past. Lane's main inspiration as a feminist activist is the aunt after whom she is named. She never met her father's sister, but her story helps draw a direct line between the social instability of today and Guatemala's 36-year civil war.
Lane's aunt disappeared in 1981 after she joined left-wing guerrillas fighting the military government. Around the time Lane's aunt died, news began to filter out of the rape, torture and murder of tens of thousands of women and girls - mostly from indigenous Mayan communities accused of supporting the insurgents.
More:
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34978330
