And with very good reason: the brutal murder of women and girls is spiralling out of control. Of 500 murders in 2004, only one ended in conviction; many of the murders involve sexual abuse, torture and mutilation. Yet Guatemalan women’s rights have made great strides:
Today more Guatemalan women go out to work, they stay longer in education, and express themselves freely than ever before.
I wonder if this is what can happen when lip service is paid to the concept of women’s rights, without anything changing in the underlying attitude?
“Every day the numbers are growing, and for two reasons,” Sandra Moran, another women’s rights activist, told the BBC News website.
“Firstly, there is no respect for the body of a woman. People feel they can treat women however they want. Also, there is the idea that women are the property of someone.
There is a sense that women should not make too much noise about what is happening to them:
“She had been raped, her hands and feet tied with barbed wire, she had been strangled and put in a bag – they kept on telling me not to get so worked up”
Rosa Franco, Mother of Maria Isabel Franco, murdered in December 2001
Read the article here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4074880.stm