Stop Femicide!

Sandra Morán returns to Richmond, VA for another visit on October 24 & 25th, 2011 at University of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University. More details to follow.

Sandra Morán: Women’s Right to Live Spring 2011 Speaker’s Tour

Reflective Response by Alma Ortman, MSW student

Virginia Commonwealth University School of Social Work

Sandra Morán, a human rights activist from Guatemala, visited Virginia Commonwealth University on March 29, 2011 as part of her Spring 2011 Speakers Tour.  Sandra Morán is a self-described feminist, lesbian, artist, and activist who has spent the majority of her life struggling for social justice and equality for all Guatemalans, with a particular emphasis on women’s rights.  Ms. Morán has been involved with the Guatemalan women’s and feminist movement for the past 20 years.  She had been living in exile from Guatemala for 14 years until returning in 1994 to participate in negotiations for the Peace Accords to end a 36-year long civil war.  In 2006, Ms. Morán (along with Andrea Barrios) founded Artisan House, an alternative meeting place for women and others that face discrimination.  The Artisan House provides artistic space for developing sustainable and creative solutions to support women and their families who have been deprived of freedom in Guatemala.  A musician and poet, Ms. Morán was also one of the founders of the first Central American Feminist band, Cantarte Vida (Singing Life to You).  She is an active member of the Women’s Sector and a leader of the feminist movement and feminist thought in Guatemala.

Sandra Morán’s visit to VCU was sponsored by a number of organizations, including the VCU School of Social Work and La Milpa America’s Interest Group.  Her Women’s Right to Live tour was organized by the Guatemalan Human Rights Commission/USA (GHRC), a nonprofit humanitarian organization that seeks to raise awareness and advocate for survivors of human rights abuses in Guatemala in an effort to work toward positive, systemic change.

Given my educational background in Women’s Studies, Hispanic Studies, and Social Work, as well as my bicultural Hispanic/American heritage and experience growing up in Latin America, I was particularly interested in Ms. Morán’s visit and the sharing of her story.  The day began with a luncheon hosted by our class of MSW SWAPP (Social Work Administration, Planning, and Policy Practice) students.  The lunch represented a great tradition, particularly in Hispanic culture, of bonding through the sharing of food.  Ms. Morán spoke about the Collective of the Artisan House and the grassroots organizing efforts she has been involved with inGuatemala.  She told us that their goal is to bring visibility to the problems of women in society.  She explained that since the Peace Accords were signed, the women’s organizing efforts have been aimed at ensuring that the government complies with their commitments to these accords, because even today this has not yet been accomplished.

Ms. Morán described how women throughout Guatemala are organizing themselves and coming together despite their differences and different issues – including women from the city, women from small rural communities, domestic workers, factory workers, women of Mayan descent, and women that identify as lesbian. It was inspiring to hear about the organizing efforts involving women from all parts of the country, and it reminded me of my community organizing experiences last summer as an intern in the Dominican Republic (D. R.), where I worked with a local women’s group in a small rural town.  The experience greatly increased my understanding and appreciation of cultural differences, while also highlighting biases I had with regard to women from rural areas.  I was inspired by the strength and leadership of the women I met in the D.R., who broke stereotypes I found myself having about “mujeres del campo.”  They were truly transformational leaders with the vision and capacity to achieve so much for their community, and I could see similar qualities of strength and passion in the work that Ms. Morán spoke about occurring in Guatemala.  Her model of organizing reflected the Latin American tradition where every person’s voice counts.  Moreover, the human rights abuses that are occurring inGuatemala against women gives their organizing work a whole other dimension of urgency and life and death.  Despite and among the differences between women, Ms. Morán said, “we must work together.”*  She stated powerfully that women need to be able to organize themselves and speak up so that “we can take back the streets,” asGuatemala is currently one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman.  There is a whole other dynamic that presents itself in organizing when women are afraid to join efforts, attend a demonstration, or even leave their house because they risk being killed simply due to their gender.

Ms. Morán went on to explain some of the grassroots organizing modules taking place in Guatemala through her organization.  She described the first concept as a political school, which is a tool for organizing by first learning about ourselves as women and finding out what makes our lives so difficult.  The critical question to ask here is, “Who am I?,” taking into account that what society wants me to be and what I want to be can be difficult to reconcile, and there are thus various internal and external obstacles to self/identity.  This revealed social work concepts of self-awareness and social justice through a Freireian mode of popular, non-formal education that raises critical consciousness.

The second component involves understanding systems of patriarchy, homophobia/lesbophobia, capitalism, racism, and so on that function as tools of oppression.  Ms. Morán used a wonderful metaphor to describe this, as she invoked the image of a tree.  The roots of the tree are those systems of capitalism, patriarchy, etc., and the trunk of the tree embodies our institutions (e.g., family, churches, education, etc.) that can change or maintain those roots.  The effects that we have as a result of those “roots”, such as poverty, discrimination, illiteracy, racism, and the marginalization of people, are the leaves of the tree.  The idea, then, is to change those roots and thus change the effects of oppression that manifest in society. 

The third component is to understand how the system affects one’s individual life.  Ms. Moran pointed our that part of this is understanding that the system is even in our feelings, and we often maintain the system ourselves because we do not change the way that we relate to each other.  She said that in order to change power relationships, we need to acknowledge those power relationships within us – again, speaking to self-awareness.  I was particularly struck with the example Ms. Morán used to describe this, stating that she had to discover and become aware of the fact that she could be a racist as well.  This example illustrates the need to critically look at not only who is your oppressor, but also the oppressor within you.  In applying this to social work ethical principles, the connection can be made that just as social workers must challenge social injustice that they encounter in society, social workers must also challenge injustices they may encounter and recognize within themselves.

Another part of the grassroots organizing discussion that I found especially illuminating was the connection that Ms. Morán made to feminism and the feminist movement.  An important component of their organizing efforts is to understand that women in Guatemala are part of this movement, and recognize the connection to ancestors of feminist women’s movements worldwide.  I loved that Ms. Morán identifies as a feminist and praises this concept, as I feel that feminism can be a highly charged word that is often misunderstood, given negative connotations, and/or approached with unnecessary caution.  Again, this challenged stereotypes I found myself having about women in Latin America, who I have traditionally considered to be more conservative and less likely to formally identify as feminist (even when their work or entire selves embody feminism).  It has been amazing to have recently met feminists from Latin American countries and see how this struggle transcends cultural norms and is something that can unite us globally.

The formal presentation began after our lunch discussion, starting with an opening ceremony of a spiritual prayer/ritual in the Mayan tradition.  Dr. Elizabeth Cramer, a professor in theSchool of Social Work, helped introduce Ms. Morán, stating that personal human rights testimony is an important tool that can renew our passion to advocacy.  Ms. Morán’s testimony, Dr. Cramer stated, is human energy, and what is important is what we do with that energy.  Dr. Karen Rotabi, also a professor at the School of Social Work who has extensive experience around Guatemalan issues shared background information about Guatemala’s Civil War and the human rights abuses that continue to take place. 

The Civil War inGuatemala resulted in more than 150,000 people killed, 60,000 people disappeared, and villages eradicated.  During this time, the military became trained in violence, including violence against women, and the femicide that continues today involves daily murders of women because of their gender.  This is a form of terrorism because it is used to destabilize communities, as the ways in which women’s bodies are mutilated and killed sends a message to communities that they (the murderers) are in control. The gender based violence manifests in ways that harm women because of their feminine qualities, such as cuts to women’s faces (destroying beauty) and severing of female organs.  I was shocked to hear that 722 women were killed in 2008, and 633 were killed in 2010, revealing that these deaths are occurring at a rate of two women per day.  Ms. Morán pointed out that sometimes the death tolls are as high as 16-18 people a day.

Although I have heard about these issues due to my class with Dr. Rotabi this past year, it was amazing to me how little I knew about the human rights abuses and war in Guatemala prior to this time.  My ignorance on such an important subject – which is also so relevant to my own personal and professional interest areas – highlights why events like Ms. Morán’s visit are so significant.  These abuses continue to occur inGuatemalabecause of the impunity and lack of systemic action on the part of the Guatemalan government.  Only 2% of perpetrators are punished by conviction and jail sentences, whereas almost 99% of the crimes against women go uninvestigated and unprosecuted.  It is difficult to imagine such horrific acts on this scale occurring in theU.S.without any government response.  As Kelsey Alford-Jones from the GHRC stated, their strategy through these events is to help advocate for Guatemalan women by putting pressure on both the Guatemalan and the U.S. government to end the impunity and demand respect for human rights and government accountability.  As Ms. Morán had also stated, many of the laws are in place as a result of the Peace Accords, but they are not being carried out in practice.

Sandra Morán’s presentation began with an overview of some of the programs through the Collective of the Artisan House, including work they do with women who are in jail, as well as their use of Guatemalan traditions such as Dia de los muertos (Day of the Dead) to show solidarity with those who have lost women in their lives, and how they combine political work with art and creativity.  “We have to discover the creativity we have and use it,” she said.  I thought it was remarkable to use art in this context, as creativity through art is something all people can cultivate and connect to despite major differences they may have in their background (e.g., ethnicity, culture, level of education or wealth).  As Gloria Anzaldúa, a Chicana tejana-lesbian-feminist poet has stated about her book Borderlands/La Frontera, which combines prose and poetry, “[T]he Borderlands are physically present wherever two or more cultures edge each other, where people of different races occupy the same territory, where under, lower, middle and upper classes touch, where the space between two individuals shrinks with intimacy.”  In reflecting on this quote in the context of Sandra Morán’s presentation, I interpret art as a powerful tool that can help shrink that space between individuals that Anzaldúa references, thereby bringing people together with the intimacy that poetry, music, drama, and other forms of art brings.

As Ms. Morán demonstrated through her own presentation, which combined reading poetry and performing music through drums, art has a powerful way of touching people in a very intimate, basic human way.  Ms. Morán explained how the system might want us to be one way, but by reencountering ourselves through our music/art, we can develop our own way of saying things and being, and that that in itself is an important political step.  I have always enjoyed participating in and creating forms of art, but this point that Ms. Morán made about art and politics gave me a new awareness of the power behind the medium.  I believe that this use of art can be incorporated into my own path as a social worker in shedding light on social justice issues while also contributing to that important piece of self-awareness that Ms. Morán spoke about:  analyzing who I am versus who I want to be, and understanding the conflict that can exist between the two, and how that conflict is intertwined with a number of internal and external/societal obstacles – then, figuring out where to go from there and doing something with that energy.  These concepts can also be integrated in work with others, as recognizing the dignity and worth of the person, as well as building and valuing human relationships are ethical principles of the social work profession.

Another core concept of Ms. Morán’s presentation was the global unity of the women’s movement.  She stated that women throughout the world need to join in solidarity because we face considerable challenges wherever we are, and that we can learn from each other through our struggles.  It is imperative to recognize that although we are different, we can be united, and build a society that recognizes these differences and capacity for unity as well.  “We are alike, let’s try to connect with each other!” Ms. Morán said.  She went on to describe her own personal struggle in coming out as a lesbian, noting that she discovered she was a lesbian when she was 14 years old, but it was not until she was 34 years old and living in exile in Canada that she came to accept it.  She spoke about having to lead a clandestine life for so many years because of her identity as a lesbian, and that this resulted in “denying myself every time.”  It was inspiring to see how far she has come in this intense struggle, as well as her candidness in sharing such personal details of her life with the audience, including some of the issues she has undergone with her mother and friends after they discovered she is a lesbian.  As Dr. Rotabi noted later in class, it was as if Ms. Morán herself was experiencing new areas of risk in her personal testimony with us, and that by telling us these stories she was also gaining her power.

Throughout her presentation, Ms. Morán read poems in Spanish with the accompaniment of a drum, while English translations were displayed on a screen behind her.  I felt an amazing shift of energy throughout the entire room when this creative piece began, as she sang out lines like “Seguimos organizando, participando!” (We continue to organize, participate!) and, “Our hopes continue to be dreams.”  One poem contained the words, “ Estar contingo significa estar conmigo/To be with you means to be with myself . . . maybe that is why I don’t know what to do with you . . . FREEDOM  . . . Now that I have you, I just need to know what to do with you.”  At first reading like a love poem, the ending of the poem revealed that the speaker was talking to this notion of freedom, and this reflected to me Ms. Morán’s earlier dialogue about identity and self-awareness as well as coming to terms with yourself (i.e., finding that freedom), and the challenges that arise from finally doing so.  As Ms. Morán had stated earlier, “Right now I am who I want to be, but it is not easy.” 

Another poem Ms. Morán read, which was written by Hilda Morales Trujillo and titled “Dolor histórico/Historic Pain,” pleaded to women to “rise up” and “create new norms so that our sons break the ancestral chain of beating and beating / So they do not learn to kill the tenderness and dignity of our daughters, granddaughters, and great granddaughters.”  The poem also noted “That united we [women] form half of the earth and half of the sky.”  It is hard to put into words the passion with which Sandra Morán read these words, all the while beating her drum in a room of intent listeners.  She demonstrated through her emotion and this performance the power of art in connecting and energizing people.

The event ended with reflections from students, including two members of the VCU Latina sorority, and Catherine Faulkner, a social work student that participated in the Guatemalan Human Rights Commission Delegation last summer. The sorority members stated feeling a renewed call to action and encouraged everyone in attendance to not simply let this event stop here, but to continue dialogue and inform the public about these issues.  Catherine Faulkner reminisced on a particularly poignant day she spent with Sandra Morán and other women inGuatemaladuring her trip, ending by saying, “Even though we are miles apart, there are women here in theU.S.that stand in solidarity with you.”

*Note that the quotes by Sandra Morán and others in this entry were taken from my personal notes during the event, and may therefore not be quoted verbatim.

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More below on this human rights defender.

Sandra Morán, who returned to Guatemala after years in exile in the US during the 36-year armed conflict, represents the historical memory of Guatemalan women who first fought for inclusion with men in the peace process. She reminds us how indigenous and Mestiza women across the county came together, not only the famous ones, and ultimately were the key engineers of the peace accords and the reconciliation process. From this history, and with our support, our delegation believes we have some basis of hope for Guatemalan women. Sandra Morán reminded us that Guatemalan women are interested in building, not in struggling against something.  Our power and wealth and rising concern for human rights gives us the opportunity to support  Guatemalan women’s efforts to reform judicial systems, build domestic violence shelters, protect their workers, educate their girls, and provide opportunities for creative expression  they are more than ready to build their own future.  This future will not be built, as Sandra reminded us, only with struggles against narcotics trafficking or corruption.

Morán's Official Biography is Below:

Sandra Morán : Guatemalan, lesbian, feminist, artist, activist for human rights and especially women’s rights, and a recent graduate of the School of Political Science from the University of San Carlos (USAC).

Since her youth, Sandra has struggled for social justice and equality for all Guatemalans.  Sandra participated in the student movement in high school and then at the USAC. She is an accomplished musician, playing a strong role in the revolutionary music movement.

Sandra has worked with the Guatemalan women’s and feminist movement for the past 20 years. She lived in exile for 14 years, from 1980-1994; during that time, she built international solidarity for Guatemala, denouncing the grave violations of human rights (committed by the State of Guatemala in the 80’s).

In 1994, Sandra returned to Guatemala, precisely to participate in the formation of the Women’s Sector and to participate in the Civil Society Assembly at the negotiations for the Peace Accords (to end a 36 year war). The Women’s Sector is an alliance of 33 organizations throughout Guatemala.

In 1995 Sandra founded the first lesbian collective in Guatemala- We Are Women.

Since 1995 Sandra has lived permanently in Guatemala, and maintains ties to Canada.

As a representative of the Women’s Sector, Sandra was the driving force and founder of the National Women’s Forum, a body that generated participation and proposals for women’s public policy after the Peace Accords. She has been a representative of the Women in National Council for the Peace Accords- CNAP, a State institution where civil society interacts with the State, political parties, and the United Nations. CNAP has pushed for the fulfillment of the Peace Accords since 2006. In 2008 Sandra was elected sub-coordinator of the CNAP for two years.

In 2006, along with Andrea Barrios, Sandra founded Artisan House as an alternative meeting place for women and other diverse groups who face discrimination. It is an artistic space for developing sustainable and creative solutions to support Women Deprived of Freedom and their families.

Currently, Morán is part of the Collective of the Artisan House, an active member of the Women’s Sector, and a leader of the feminist movement and feminist thought in Guatemala. She maintains her artistic work and was a driving force and founder with Karla Lara from Honduras and Ana Carter of Costa Rica of the first Central American Feminist Band, Cantarte Vida  (Singing Life to You). She maintains a network of social movements that strive for a new Guatemala, for everyone, female and male.

EVENT PHOTOSSandra giving human rights testimony

Sandra explaining the circumstances of women in Guatemala

and (below) expressing the rights of women through the arts...drumming and poetry

The Latin American Sorority Sisters  of VCU respond (above)

Catherine Faulkner, MSW student and Vice President of LA MILPA, expresses gratitude to Sandra.

A token of our appreciation for Sandra.

New friendships and memories are made.