Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences

Contested, Territorialized Masculinities, Gender Violence, and Legal Pluralism:Mam Female Refugees Seeking Gendered Justice in Guatemala and the U.S.

Paper Prepared for Radcliffe Seminar on “Indigenous Peoples, Gender Justice and Legal Pluralism in the United States, Mexico and Guatemala,” September 7-9, 2016

Lynn Stephen

Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences

Department of Anthropology

University of Oregon

August 4, 2016

What are the obstacles to indigenous women’s access to gendered justice in Guatemala that result in their flight to the U.S. as refugees? This paper explores this question through an analysis of one gendered asylum case that contains elements represented in a dozen cases of primarily Mam women who have fled gendered violence in Huehuetenango and are pursuing gendered asylum in the U.S. My analysis suggests that conflicting and overlapping justice and security systems as well as the conflicting masculinities that play out inside and outside of indigenous communities in these systems are some of the primary sources of women’s inability to access justice in their home territories. Initial fieldwork and in-depth interviews with Mam gendered asylum seekers and other Mam refugees in the U.S. suggest a consistent set of practices, narratives, and actions carried out on women’s bodies as a part of competing masculine practices of territorial control that continue the real and symbolic subordination of indigenous women to men in their local communities and beyond. After an analysis of the obstacles to indigenous women’s access to gendered justice in Guatemala, I conclude by examining their possibilities for attaining protection through the U.S. process of gendered asylum.

Guatemala’s Femicide and Domestic Violence Courts

Innovative legal frameworks such as the 2008 Law Against Femicide and Other Forms of Violence Against Womenand specialized tribunals implemented in Guatemala since 2010 that are dedicated to hearing cases of femicide[1], domestic violence, sexual violence, or other gendered forms of violence offer the possibility of justice for women who have been victims of violence. Specially trained judges, social workers, psychologists, lawyers and women’s rights advocates and organizations have heard thousands of cases in these specialized courts for femicide and violence against women. For example from June of 2013 until June of 2014, 3,539 cases entered into court proceedings with 71 percent or 2, 548 of those occurring in the capital city of Guatemala. In the more outlying departments of Guatemala where a majority of women petitioning courts are likely to be indigenous, the number of cases heard is much lower during the same time period: 192 in Quetzaltenango (department is 51 percent indigenous) and 203 in Huehuetenango (department is 53 percent indigenous) (Unidad de Control, Seguimiento y Evaluación de los Órganos Especializados en Delitos de Femicidio y Otras Formas de Violencia contra la Mujer del Organismo Judicial 2014: 72). Of those cases that began court proceedings, during this period, 708 cases or 20 percent of those cases were either settled through plea bargains or were discontinued for various reasons.The majority of the cases (80 percent) that went through complete trails resulted in 1,487 convictions and 407 acquittals, with an overall conviction rate of 79 percent for those cases that completed trials and 42 percent conviction rate of all cases that started court proceedings (Unidad de Control, Seguimiento y Evaluación de los Órganos Especializados en Delitos de Femicidio y Otras Formas de Violencia contra la Mujer del Organismo Judicial 2014: 75).

In 2013, The National Statistics Institute (INE) together with the Presidential Secretariat of Women (Seprem) reported that during the period of 2008 to 2013 that 51, 525 complaints were received by the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office in relation to crimes covered by the 2008 Law Against Femicide and Other Forms of Violence Against Women (Urizar 2014). For that same period of time (2008-2013) there were a total of 4,389 violent deaths of women reported (Red Feminista Centroamericana Contra la Violencia hacia las Mujeres 2016). Of these reported violent deaths, 1,008 or 22.9 percent of these murders became legal cases processed in different kinds of courts as femicides. Roughly 195 or 20 percent of those 1,008 cases tried as femicides resulted in sentencing, according to the Central American Network Against Violence Against Women (2016).

These statistics suggest that the 2008 law and new courts have been somewhat effective in providing a new brand of specialized justice to a significant number of women. In addition, recent court cases in 2016 such as that of Sepur Zarco where Supreme Court Judge Yasmin Barrios gave sentences totaling 360 years of imprisonment to two military commanders forsexual violence, sexual slavery and domestic slavery they forced on indigenous Quiche women 36 years ago, have also broadened the legal space for prosecuting gendered and racialized violence. Nevertheless, indigenous women who are able to achieve justice in the Supreme Court and in specialized courts are very limited. What are the obstacles to access for most indigenous women, particularly those who are poor, live in marginalized rural areas, and who do not speak Spanish? And if they cannot access relief from multiples forms of gendered violence in Guatemala, is making the dangerous and expensive trip from Guatemala through Mexico to the U.S. worth the risk taken to attempt to access gender justice through the U.S. immigration court system?I begin my answers to these questions by first introducing one asylum case that represents the elements of 11 other cases I have worked on.

Teresa’s story

I first met Teresa Perez in a small town in Oregon. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and she was nervous as she sat on the edge of her seat. We were meeting in a small office of a non-profit that helps to provide food, clothing, housing assistance, and access to social services for low-income and impoverished families. We were meeting to begin the process of preparing Teresa’s case for gendered asylum. We talked for more than two hours. This was the first of several extensive interviews to document her life story in order to assist in building her declaration of gendered asylum in the U.S. She lodged her asylum application with the Oregon immigration court in the spring of 2016. Her story lays out many of challenges faced by indigenous women who have not been able to access gendered justice in Guatemala. I use her story as a lens onto the analytical discussion that follows.

I was born in a small village in the Department of Huehuetenango. There is no public transportation to the hamlet I live in except once a week when there is a market held in the center town of our municipality. Most of the time we have to walk if we want to get anywhere. When I was growing up and even when I was married I had no money to pay for transportation even on those days.

I am a twenty-three year old indigenous woman. I only speak Mam and I grew up following the customs of the Mam people. I don’t speak Spanish. My parents and many of my siblings still live in the small hamlet I grew up in. I have two small children who I was not able to bring with me. They live with my sister who cares for them.

My childhood was difficult. We were very poor and often we were hungry. I only went to school for 3 years. In order to get to my school, I had to walk for two hours. Going to school was really difficult and I couldn’t understand much because all the material was in Spanish and I don’t speak Spanish.

When I was nine I had to stop going to school because my family was very poor and my father could not afford the cost of the books, notebooks and the uniform. Also it is more a custom for boys than girls to have an education. So I only went for a few years.

Our house is in the country and there are no other houses nearby. Ithas only one big room. My typical day at home as a child was very busy. I used to collect wood, make tortillas, wash dishes, wash clothes, weave and put compost on the coffee crops. In my spare time I would weave traditional textiles, and make clothes. Sometimes I was able to sell the clothes I made to other people. My brothers would help my father by clearing the coffee fields of weeds with machetes, and fertilizing the plants. We had a small plot with coffee growing.

When I was 16, I started dating my boyfriend Carloswho was three months younger than me. After a while, my boyfriend Carlosasked permission father if we could live together in his house. His father accepted so I moved into Carlos’ house. A lot of people do that before they get formally married. While we were together, I got pregnant and I had a son who was born on in 2009. We were happy together for a few months. I wanted to marry Carlos but we were very young and we needed to wait some time. We also didn’t have any money.

Later that year, Pedrowho is a Mam indigenous man from my community and who was at that time was four years older than started approaching me and explained to me that Carlos was a child and he was not man enough for me.

The same year Carlos left the house and went with his father to the coast, to the state of Escuintla to work. They went there because Carlos wanted to make money to provide for our family. Carlos stayed there for over a year. Because of our separation, I remember feeling alone and insecure about me and Carlos. On top on that Pedro kept approaching me and telling I was wasting my time with a child like Carlos.

Feeling lonely and insecure I decided to leave Carlos’s house and went to my sister’s house with my baby. Then Carlos came back, but in a little while in March of 2011 Carlos left for the United States.While Carlos was back, Pedro had been threatening him and telling him to stay away from me. Then, after Carlos left for the U.S., Pedro became more direct and he told me that he wanted to marry me. He promised me that he would take care of my son and me. He said he had the means to take care of me and that he would treat me with respect. I started believing him.

At that time I wasn’t sure what Pedro was doing for living. I knew that he was wearing blue clothes that meant that he was part of the Blue Gang[2], but I was not sure of his involvement. I think I was hopeful that he was only a sympathizer of the blue group. He was always wearing nice blue clothes and he looked strong and self-confident.

Around 2011, I was taking care of my sister in the center of Todos Santos. She just had had a baby, so she needed some help. That day when I went to the plaza I ran into Pedro and he asked me to move with in him. I was alone with a baby and I felt I didn’t have a better option, so I accepted Pedro’s offer and we moved in together. I moved with him at his house in which was also his parents’ house. This was outside of the town center, maybe about 45-60 minutes walking.

At first everything was ok, but when he got me pregnant, little by little the problems began. Pedro began to drink alcohol and beat me. He wanted me to abort our child and he claimed that the baby I was pregnant with was not his baby. He left bruises on my mouth and my belly from hitting me. He treated me as if I was an animal.He would hit me wherever he wanted to.

Nobody could stop him. We lived with his parents and they tried to protect me and stop Pedro. But Pedro was very disrespectful and he even threatened his father with death. He told him “I will kill you if you bother me. Let me do whatever I want to do.” His father could not do anything to stop the violence. Pedro actually hit his father several times. At this moment I started to understand that nobody could stop Pedro from hitting me.

At the same time, Pedro started yelling that he didn’t want my other son to be in his house because he was not his son. Pedro began beating him, too. Over time, the situation got worse.

Every time that I tried to complain, Pedro told me that I didn’t have any escape and I couldn’t go to the police. He said if I did, he would kill the children and me too. And the police were in the center, far away, and they don’t speak Mam.

Things also got strange between us. I started feeling that Pedro was not telling me the truth. He would disappear for a few days and come back drunk and with money. He didn’t work, but he always had money. He always had nice clothes.

After a year and a half of living with him, before the baby was born I escaped to live with my parents in the small village I was born in. It is about two hours away from where I was living with Pedro. I was pregnant and my body could not tolerate the abuse.

My second son was born in 2012. I was livingwith my family at the time. Pedro did not want to give our son his last name. He claimed that our son was not his son I was hopeful that Pedro had forgottenabout me and that I was safe at with my parents, but that was not the case.

One day in March 2013 I was out walking with my two sons. They were six months and four years old. We ran into Pedro on the road. Pedro came after us and tried to strangle me. He told me, “I am going to kill you with your sons.” I was terribly frightened. I was saved when a person came walking down the road and Pedro ran off. He told me that he was going to find me and kill us all.

After this incident, I was afraid for my life. I spent my days inside with my siblings and my parents and I never left the house for fear of seeing Pedro. I lived for a year and a half like that, with my family, but then my father told me he could not support us anymore because he was elderly. I couldn’t keep living with my parents, but I had n where else to go. I was terrified to leave.

At that time and because of Pedro’s behavior toward me, my children and his parents, I understood that he was an active part of the Blue Gang. I also understood that he was very dangerous and had friends who would help him to carry out his threats to kill my children and me.

Where I lived, our territory is divided in two. On the one side in particular hamlets are the Blue gang members. In other hamlets are the Red gang members[3]. They are enemies and often they fight and kill each other.

As I said Pedro was always wearing blue clothes and a handkerchief around his hand. He also used his fingers to show a sign, something kind of weird. When I was living with him I started to understand his involvement. I also think that at the beginning he was not that active in the group but overtime his involvement grew.

At the beginning he was self confident, but then he became defiant and scary.

I decided to come to the United States to live a life without fear of dying at the hands of my husband Pedro. I did not report any of this to the police, although I wanted to, because Pedro told me if I went to the police, he would kill my children, my parents, and me immediately. I was too frightened for my life to continue living in Guatemala. Also, I live really far from the center and I could not afford to go there and whom would I tell? They only speak Spanish.

I borrow some money to pay for the coyotes to come to the United States. I could not bring my children with me because it was too expensive. They stayed in Guatemala with my sister who is taking care of them.

I am very worried about my children. I know Pedro could kidnap them or kill them. Right before I left in June of 2014, there was a little boy who was eight years old who was kidnapped.They cut his neck with a knife and killed him. He was on his way to school. That really scared me. [4]

In August of 2014, I came through La Mesilla, Guatemala (about 85 kilometers away from the hamlet she lived in) to Mexico. I went all the way through Mexico by bus. Thankfully, nothing bad happened to us during this trip, although the Mexican authorities did demand that I pay a fine in order to pass through part of Mexico while I was on the bus. I arrived at the town of Altar in Northern Mexico.From there I walked through the desert with a group of people from Guatemala. After walking all through the night, I was tired and I could not walk any more. I finally arrived in a town with many lights, although I do not know where I was exactly. The immigration patrol caught me there.

I spent one day and one night in a jail in la hielera(reference to very cold holding cells)and then I was transferred to Eloy, Arizona. When I arrived at the prison there, I had blisters on my foot. They took me to a hospital where a doctor helped me. I made friends with other women there at the prison and they loaned me calling cards to call my brothers who are in the United States.