NCJ Number
197164
Journal
Violence Against Women Volume: 8 Issue: 10 Dated: October 2002 Pages: 1153-1181
Date Published
October 2002
Length
29 pages
Annotation
This article demonstrates how national and international forces collude in the depoliticization of rape and the silencing of rape survivors in Guatemala.
Abstract
Testimonies from hundreds of witnesses and perpetrators of state-sponsored rape in Guatemala suggest that soldiers systematically raped Mayan women, particularly at the height of the 36-year civil war. This research involved both passive and active collection of violence testimonials from the Guatemalan town of San Jose, the Mexican town of Chiapas, and the city of Los Angeles, California. There are a number of factors that inhibit survivors from reporting being raped, including shame and self-blame, fear of being stigmatized, and fear of being blamed by others. The depoliticization of state-sponsored rape and the consequent exclusion of survivors’ accounts from public testimonies are not solely a product of gender ideologies. Local cultural ideologies and social sanctions cannot fully explain the exclusion of first-hand accounts of war rape in the context in which testimonials of other manifestations of state violence are produced. Governments, including the United States, have routinely denied political asylum to survivors of state-sponsored rape because it is not considered a political crime. Survivors have little political incentive to offer their personal testimonies of wartime rape. To do so would entail the risk of being set apart as gendered victims rather than as political victims and excluded from the category of legitimate refugee. Despite the efforts by international feminist, human rights, and refugee organizations to publicize the political nature of state-sponsored rape as a gendered war crime, the perception of wartime rape as an individual act of wayward soldiers continues. There are repercussions for women that give firsthand accounts of rape in their testimonies. They are viewed primarily as victimized women rather than as persecuted citizens and are denied claims of political asylum. 10 notes, 64 references