Depoliticised Speech and Sexed Visibility: Women, Gender and Sexual Violence in the 1999 Guatemalan Comision para el Esclarecimiento Historico Report

Rosser, Emily

doi:10.1093/ijtj/ijm032

Cited by 12 publications

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“…4 The voluminous size of the reports, the lack of a viable translation into English, and the refusal of the Guatemalan state to take ownership of them at the time of their presentation have also contributed to a lower international profile for these processes when compared with others such as the contemporaneous South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Grandin, 2011;Oglesby, 2007;Torres-Rivas, 2006). On gender violence in these reports, see Nolin Hanlon and Shankar, 2000;Diez, 2006;Paz y Paz Bailey, 2006;Rosser, 2007;Impunity Watch, 2008;Marston, Oglesby, & Patterson-Markowitz, 2012;Impunity Watch, 2012. See also the various products of the collaboration between women's organization UNAMG and psychosocial organization ECAP in the long-term work with survivors of war-time sexual violence that was for some time called the Consorcio Actoras de Cambio & ICCPG, 2006;Fulchiron, López, & Paz Bailey, 2009;documented in Marston, Oglesby, & Patterson-Markowitz, 2012.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The reports of the REMHI and CEH thus display marked contradictions on sexual violence. Perhaps most striking was the total absence of recommendations about gender violence in both reports, despite the exposure of egregious racialized sexual violations within particular sections, leading some critics to interpret the reports as naturalizing sexual violence and as producing a hypervictimized image of indigenous women (Crosby & Lykes, ; Diez, ; Fulchiron, López, & Paz Bailey, ; Marston, Oglesby, & Patterson‐Markowitz, ; Rosser, ). While social and political change is recommended in relation to the race‐ and class‐based oppression documented in the reports, the same analysis is not advanced as a way to combat gender oppression.…”

Section: Transitional Justice Gender and Sexual Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Further, women's considerable role as rights activists is absent from the sections of these reports that deal explicitly with historical analysis, so that when women are featured “as women” in the reports, it is mainly as embodied victims rather than also as political actors with a voice and a meaningful stake in shaping postwar democracy. Elsewhere, I have discussed this pattern in more detail with reference to the CEH report (Rosser, ).…”

Section: Transitional Justice Gender and Sexual Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

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The Messy Practice of Building Women's Human Rights: Truth‐telling and Sexual Violence inGuatemala

Rosser¹

2015

Latin American Policy

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This article seeks to contribute to broader discussions of how human rights emerge and become intelligible in moments of transition at national and transnational levels. It focuses on ad hoc practices of exposing war-time sexual violence in two major truthtelling processes in Guatemala, the Recuperation of Historical Memory Project and the Commission for Historical Clarification. These initiatives collected testimony to document thousands of cases of state-sanctioned violence during the 36 years of war that officially concluded with the peace accords in December 1996. Among their other achievements, these processes were the first truth-telling bodies in Latin America to expose and condemn gender violence in war. In Guatemala, the postwar transition occurred at precisely the moment that the organizing of women internationally was beginning to bear fruit at the statutory level, but the feminist analysis that developed is not attributable merely to the uptake of developments in international law. This article considers these Guatemalan cases to argue that, although legal progress is crucial, practice has been a key alternative source for the development of women's human rights around sexual violence.Este artículo contribuye a discusiones más amplias sobre la emergencia e inteligibilidad de los derechos humanos en momentos de transición, tanto a niveles nacionales como internacionales. Se enfoca en las prácticas ad hoc utilizadas para exponer la violencia sexual en dos procesos de verdad y memoria histórica en Guatemala: el Proyecto Interdiocesano de Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica (REMHI) y la Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico (CEH). Estas iniciativas recogieron testimonios y documentaron miles de casos de violencia cometidos por el Estado durante los 36 años de guerra que concluyeron con los acuerdos de paz en diciembre de 1996. Entre otros logros, estos procesos fueron las primeras comisiones de verdad y de memoria histórica en América Latina que expusieron y condenaron la violencia de género durante la guerra. En Guatemala, la transición de posguerra ocurrió en el momento preciso que la militancia para los derechos humanos de las mujeres empezó a impulsar cambios concretos al nivel estatutario, pero el análisis feminista que se generó no es el resultado únicamente de la adopción de los nuevos enfoques del derecho penal internacional. Este artículo considera el caso de Guatemala para proponer que, aunque el progreso jurídico sea crucial, las prácticas ad hoc han sido una alternativa clave en el desarrollo de los derechos humanos de las mujeres contra la violencia sexual.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Transitional Justice Gender and Sexual Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Transitional Justice Gender and Sexual Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

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The Messy Practice of Building Women's Human Rights: Truth‐telling and Sexual Violence inGuatemala

Rosser¹

2015

Latin American Policy

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“…The growing practice of criminally prosecuting perpetrators of sexual violence against women has raised the question of appropriateness of criminal tribunals in delivering transformative gender outcomes (Grewal 2010;Zinstag 2013). Recurrent in this maze of uncertainty is the overwhelming emphasis placed on proving the alleged offense, rather than providing women with the platforms to tell their stories of harm, torture, and survival (Meyers 2016;Kent 2014;Rosser 2007;Stover 2011). Julie Mertus eloquently characterized how women's stories of harm, torture, and survival in criminal proceedings are stunted by the judicial exigencies to prove the required criminal intent and action of the perpetrator (Mertus 2004, pp.…”

Section: Recognition and Acknowledgment Of Gender-specific Harms Agaimentioning

confidence: 99%

Women and Transitional Justice in Africa and Latin America

Yacob-Haliso

Omoigberale

2020

The Palgrave Handbook of African Women's Studies

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A gendered reading of transitional justice raises critical questions considering the nature of peace expected to be achieved in post-conflict settings. This chapter assesses the themes that shape these conversations, structured around the recognition of gender-specific harms against women, gender-sensitive reparation policies, understanding gender structural disparities that expose women to certain harms, and engaging women in the institutions and processes of planning and implementing transitional justice mechanisms and processes. These gendered justice gaps discursively shape transitional justice scholarship in Africa and Latin America, as a critical pointer to the state of the field. It underscores the important benefits in the coalescence of gender studies in transitional justice protocol, particularly in the development of the relevant body of scholarship, the ability to learn through transitional justice mechanisms and processes, and the increasing scholarly demand for prioritizing these gender-specific themes in

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“…Thirdly, testimonies may also be dictated by existing local and international discourses and gender constructions. Indeed, narratives around peace and war are dominated by expectations and representation of women as victims without due consideration of the multitude of roles women have played during war, as survivors, perpetrators, leaders, and breadwinners (Kent 2014;Mibenge 2013;Rosser 2007;Sen 2011). Ross' analysis of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) distinguishes between two forms of testimonies by women that are common: (1) expert witnesses in relation to the men in their lives (sons, husbands, etc.…”

Section: Post-war Testimonies and Womenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testimony Under Threat: Women’s Voices and the Pursuit of Justice in Post-War Sri Lanka

Höglund

2019

Hum Rights Rev

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This paper foregrounds how women's public testimony as part of a formal transitional justice initiative is shaped by the particular context in which a commission operate, including the political and security environment. While the literature has engaged with the gendered predicaments of truth commissions after peace agreements and during transitions away from non-democratic rule, the function of such initiatives in more authoritarian and in immediate postwar contexts is generally overlooked. I examine women's testimonies from Sri Lanka's Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), and contend that pervasive militarization and insecurity, and the conduct of the Commission, influenced the stories that came forth. Women's testimonies in the war-torn areas primarily represent pleas for information about missing family members and reflect important silences about the women's own experiences of abuse, including ongoing postwar insecurities. The analysis raises questions about what may be expected from transitional justice efforts in difficult postwar contexts.

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Depoliticised Speech and Sexed Visibility: Women, Gender and Sexual Violence in the 1999 Guatemalan Comision para el Esclarecimiento Historico Report

Cited by 12 publications

References 0 publications

The Messy Practice of Building Women's Human Rights: Truth‐telling and Sexual Violence inGuatemala

The Messy Practice of Building Women's Human Rights: Truth‐telling and Sexual Violence inGuatemala

Women and Transitional Justice in Africa and Latin America

Testimony Under Threat: Women’s Voices and the Pursuit of Justice in Post-War Sri Lanka

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