Stop Femicide!

The Day that Changed my Life Forever:

Gladys Monterroso Testifies 

November 2009: Dr. Gladys Monterroso gave testimony during a East Coast speakers tour with the Guatemala Human Rights Commission. She began in Richmond Virginia at Randolph Macon College and Virginia Commonwealth University and then proceed to New York City, Boston, and Washington, DC where she recounted the events of "The Day that Changed my Life Forever."

(Photographed with Monterroso is Kelsey Alford-Jones of the Guatemala Human Rights Commission providing language interpretation)

Carmen Monico of Richmond, VA attended this event as an officer of La Milpa: Guatemala Interest Group and she shares her thoughts about the event as follows: 

Dr. Monterroso’s testimony was tremendously moving – it made me feel both helpless and empowered. As someone who left my birth country of El Salvador during to the civil war and witnessed the violence emerging there during post-conflict, I was stricken at the similar histories of Salvadorans and Guatemalans. The brutal violence against women in post-war Guatemala cannot be seen in a vacuum. The repressive and patriarchical socio-political and economic structures that prevailed during the war are still very much present in that country through violence against women and femicide. How can we, Central Americans and others in the international community continue to tolerate these gross violations of human rights? What Dr. Monterosso suffered is only a slice of that reality which we should feel compelled to counter act!

As a leader of La Milpa: Guatemala Interest Group, I have been working towards this end. La Milpa has been bringing defenders of human rights, such as Dr. Monterroso to the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), both to bear witness but also to make us feel compelled to counter act human rights violations in Guatemala. Dr. Monterosso achieved that at VCU. I saw students like me being touched by her testimony, and asking what they can do about helping in this situation. Again, after feeling helpless, many of us felt empowered to see how Dr. Monterosso, in spite of the constant conditions of threat, continues to work for a more just society in Guatemala.

 According to the Washington Post: 

"Monterosso's kidnapping has become a symbol of Guatemala's collective trauma as the nation suffers through a huge surge in abductions and killings that has gone largely unnoticed internationally. It is a sad reminder that the past is the present and also probably the future, as long as impunity prevails."

After being held captive, being raped and tortured, Monterroso was released and her story underscores the continnum of violence that is part of the epidemic of femicide in Guatemala.

Detailed speaker's tour information can be found at www.ghrc-usa.org