Guatemala must act to stop the killing of women

Maria Isabel Franco was abducted and murdered in 2001

Amnesty International:

Amnesty International today urged the Guatemalan authorities to act to stop the high numbers of women being killed across the country and ensure perpetrators are brought to justice, ahead of International Women’s Day on 8 March.

According to official figures, 685 women were killed in 2010 alone in Guatemala amid a culture of impunity, a legacy of the 1960-96 internal armed conflict which led to hundreds of thousands human rights violations which remain unaccounted for.

Less than 4% of all homicide cases result in perpetrators being convicted, despite the Guatemalan congress passing a law in 2008 that typified various crimes of violence against women and established special tribunals and sentencing guidelines.

The gender of the woman is often a determining factor in the motive of the crime, the way in which the authorities respond to the case and the way women are killed (female victims often suffering exceptional brutality before being killed, including rape, mutilation and dismemberment).

Described by the UN as witnessing genocide, Guatemala's internal armed conflict left 200,000 people dead.

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