The Uneven Impacts of Violence against Women Reform in Guatemala: Intersecting Inequalities and the Patchwork State

Beck, Erin

doi:10.25222/larr.636

Cited by 11 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 37 publications

(35 reference statements)

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“…Of course, the passage of VAW legislation alone is not enough to guarantee women's rights to live a life free of violence. In Guatemala, as elsewhere, there are significant gaps among VAW legislation, implementation, and effects (Beck 2021). The Guatemalan government has systematically underresourced implementing institutions and underreformed other institutions like police that are often victims' first points of contact.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other women's organizations, such as the Women's Group for Family Improvement (GRUFEPROMEFAM) began as women's wings of mixed-gender organizations. Local organizations also sprung up across the country to address women's immediate needs through socioeconomic or educational projects, taking advantage of international funding aimed at "gendering" development (Beck 2017). Some organizations founded during this time identified as feminist (Living Earth, GGM) whereas other eschewed this label (Conavigua, GRUFEPROMEFAM).…”

Section: Establishing Movement Autonomy Regional Connections and Vaw ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This law also mandated measures to increase women's access to justice, including the creation of specialized VAW courts. While there were significant gaps between the law, its implementation, and its effects (Beck 2021), the law established VAW as a matter of public concern and provided women political capital in their struggle to live lives free of violence.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Long-Term Struggle for Violence against Women Legislation: The Guatemalan Women's Movement and the Politics of Patience

Beck¹

2021

Pol & Gen

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A scholarly consensus depicts strong, autonomous domestic women's movements as critical for the passage of gender equality reforms, alongside openings in domestic and international political contexts. What, then, is a nascent women's movement seeking gender equality reforms to do if it lacks strength or a history of autonomous organizing? A long-term analysis of the Guatemalan women's movement's push for reforms to address violence against women demonstrates that one potential road forward is through a “politics of patience,” rooted in the pursuit of cumulative, incremental victories. Adopting a politics of patience allows nascent domestic movements in developing and post-transition contexts to achieve incremental victories that create future political openings while simultaneously building movement strength and autonomy over time. This finding highlights the temporal and strategic power of women's movements, as well as the iterative and potentially reinforcing nature of social mobilization and political reform.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Establishing Movement Autonomy Regional Connections and Vaw ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Long-Term Struggle for Violence against Women Legislation: The Guatemalan Women's Movement and the Politics of Patience

Beck¹

2021

Pol & Gen

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“…Thus, on paper, they are meant to challenge impunity, and in so doing inspire more trust in state institutions. However, evidence from a wide variety of contexts demonstrates that this impact is not guaranteed, especially in the face of lackluster implementation (Montoya 2013), other laws that undercut VAWG reforms (Menjívar and Walsh 2016), and sexist or discriminatory officials who undermine laws on the ground (Beck 2021;Menjívar and Walsh 2017;Nelson 1996;Neumann 2017). In the short-term, laws are also unlikely to lead to dramatic reductions in VAWG because perpetrators' behaviors are not just shaped by legal disincentives but also by stubborn social norms that normalize VAWG (Htun and Jensenius 2020;Menjívar and Walsh 2017).…”

Section: Vawg Laws and Their Potential Impacts On Individuals Societies And Institutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…More broadly, institutions critical to addressing impunity have been inadequately reformed (Beck 2021), contributing to a sense among Guatemalans that the criminal justice system is broken. Police regularly demand and accept bribes (CNSAFJ 2007, p. 26, violate citizens' rights, and have links to organized crime.…”

Section: Vawg Reforms Confront Normalized Vawg and Distrust In Criminal Justice Institutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Body Speaks: State, Media, and Public Responses to Femicide in Guatemala

Beck

Mohamed

2021

Laws

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In 2008, Guatemala passed the Law against Femicide and Other Forms of Violence against Women, establishing the gender-based killing of women (femicide) as a unique crime. Since then, over 9000 Guatemalan women and girls have died violent deaths. How do Guatemalan institutions and publics react to these women’s murders, and what do these reactions reveal about the impacts of legislative reform for individual victims, Guatemalan society, and criminal justice institutions? To answer these questions, we analyze state, media, and public reactions to three high-profile femicides that took place after the 2008 VAW Law. We trace the criminal justice response and legal developments following each femicide, and couple this with an analysis of newspaper coverage and social media commentary about the case. We find that despite the passage of new legislation and the creation of new institutions, various weaknesses in the Guatemalan criminal justice system undermine the impacts of reforms. These weaknesses in the criminal justice system produce three types of injuries: (1) individual injuries by hurting victims and their families; (2) public injuries by diverting public attention away from reflections about social norms and VAWG; and (3) institutional injuries by reinforcing the public’s distrust of the criminal justice system.

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Blocking the Law from Within: Familyism Ideologies as Obstacles to Legal Protections for Women in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua

Menjívar¹,

Diossa-Jiménez²

2022

Lat. Am. res. rev.

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The scholarship seeking to explain the ineffectiveness of violence against women (VAW) laws has focused on the lack of resources or will to implement these laws. Less attention has been given to how these laws are crafted and positioned in the legal hierarchy, which may undermine them from the start. This article focuses on four cases from Central America, a region where fifty-five laws to protect women from violence were passed between 1960 and 2018, yet VAW continues. It finds that the legal positioning and language of these laws prioritize family unity while undermining women’s rights to protection; thus, these laws fail by design. The article identifies four legal placements that delay (El Salvador), undermine (Honduras), diminish (Nicaragua), or render abstract (Guatemala) the effectiveness of VAW laws in the context of penal and judicial codes. This work has direct policy implications and broader relevance beyond the cases examined here.

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The Uneven Impacts of Violence against Women Reform in Guatemala: Intersecting Inequalities and the Patchwork State

Abstract: Although arguably the more appropriate term is feminicide (the gendered killing of women with the state's complicity), I follow Guatemala's legal terminology (femicidio) for clarity's sake.

Cited by 11 publications

References 37 publications

The Long-Term Struggle for Violence against Women Legislation: The Guatemalan Women's Movement and the Politics of Patience

The Long-Term Struggle for Violence against Women Legislation: The Guatemalan Women's Movement and the Politics of Patience

A Body Speaks: State, Media, and Public Responses to Femicide in Guatemala

Blocking the Law from Within: Familyism Ideologies as Obstacles to Legal Protections for Women in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua

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