During the year-long Guatemalan civil war, indigenous women were systematically raped and enslaved by the military in a small community near the Sepur Zarco outpost. What happened to them then was not unique, but what happened next, changed history. From β , 15 women survivors fought for justice at the highest court of Guatemala. The groundbreaking case resulted in the conviction of two former military officers of crimes against humanity and granted 18 reparation measures to the women survivors and their community.
The abuelas of Sepur Zarco, as the women are respectfully referred to, are now waiting to experience justice. Justice, for them, includes education for the children of their community, access to land, a health-care clinic and such measures that will end the abject poverty their community has endured across generations.
Justice must be lived. Like many other Maya Q'eqchi' women of Sepur Zarco, a small rural community in the Polochic Valley of north-eastern Guatemala, Ba Caal is still looking for the remains of her husband and son who were forcibly disappeared and most likely killed by the Guatemalan army in the early s.
The Guatemalan internal armed conflict[ 1 ] dates back to when a military coup ousted the democratically elected President, Jacobo Arbenz. The subsequent military rulers reversed the land reforms that benefited the poor mostly indigenous farmers, triggering 36 years of armed conflict between the military and left-wing guerilla groups and cost more than , lives.
The majority of those killedβ83 per centβwere indigenous Maya people. Castillo reverses land reforms that benefited poor farmers and removes voting rights for illiterate Guatemalans for years to come.
