Guatemalan Women Speak Out Against Rape

dawn — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 05:05:42 +0000

Soldiers, police, security terrorized residents who live in nickel-rich area

EL ESTOR, GUATEMALA—It was the middle of May, just days into the rainy season, when I made the trip to Lote 8, one of the dozens of Maya-Qeqchi villages scattered about the steep and perennially green Santa Cruz mountain range in eastern Guatemala. Clouds formed and dissipated over the Western Highlands, reaching by dusk the lowlands around Lake Izabal and the Polochic River basin. Then the stagnant heat broke, in storm. In the weeks to come, the rains would increase, scouring the mountains of their red-tinted earth, forcing it to the valley below, and eventually out to sea.

Roughly 100 years ago, the Maya-Qeqchi of Izabal began to occupy the marginal lands. Many still live on these lands—on the narrow sloping tracts beneath the mountain, within view of the sprawling lake and the distant mist-shrouded ridges of the Sierra de las Minas to the south. Others, like those from Lote 8, fled the lowlands below, higher into the mountains. Despite the steep slopes and rugged terrain, they took root, grew with family, endured flood and drought, had plentiful harvests and practiced the ancient ways.

Nathan Einbinder is a graduate student in the field of geography. Much of his work focuses on the impacts of development on Indigenous and marginalized people, particularly in Central America.

Guatemalan Women Speaking out against Rape

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The Dominion - Nathan Einbinder

Guatemalan Women Speak Out Against Rape