Why speak of femicide in

Guatemala?

Ana Silvia Monzón

2008 Gyeongnam World Conference on
Women’s Human Rights
Korea
Where is Guatemala?
• small country located at
the Central American
Region. The population
is approximately 13
millions, 51% female,
49% male. Almost 50%
of the population is
indigenous or mayan.
 Guatemala’s Facts
• Population: 13.4 million (UN, 2007)
• Age structure: 
• 0-14 years: 40.8% (male 2,641,179/female 2,556,397)
• 15-64 years: 55.5% (male 3,426,376/female 3,642,157)
• 65 years and over: 3.6% (male 213,801/female 248,201)
(2007 est.).
Capital: Guatemala City
• Major languages: Spanish, 23 indigenous languages as
Kiche’, Kaqchikel, Mam, Q’eqchi
 Guatemala’s facts
• Major religion: Christianity, indigenous Mayan beliefs
• Literacy:  age 15 and over can read and write total
population: 69.1%. Male: 75.4%; female: 63.3% (2002
census).

• Labor force: 5.02 million (2005 est.).

Labor force - by occupation: agriculture: 50% industry:
15% services: 35% (est.).
Population below poverty line: 56.2% (2004 est.).
 In the war 1960-1996
• over 200,000 civilians • woman’s victims during
were murdered, 45,000 the armed internal
was disappeared, and conflict, which is 25 %,
440 Mayan villages of which 62 % was
wiped from the map. included between 18
and 60 years of age, 33
% was girls and 17-year-
old minor teenagers
and 3 % was major
adults.
 Violence against women
• is a violation of the human rights but is the
most extreme act of the continuum of
violence against women.
• A violence that they live from childhood, at
home, at school and at public places, and that
includes psychological, physical, sexual,
political and economic (patrimonial) violence
From genocide to Femicide in Guatemala
after the war
2001-2006
 This violence is
• “normalized” by their frequency
• in the media there are a morbous