Can the State Interrupt the Vicious Cycle of Gendered Violence that it Helped to Create? Evidence from Guatemala

Lynn Stephen, University of Oregon

Erin Beck, University of Oregon

Research Grant, 2019

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Guatemala, a country with one of the highest rates of violence against women and girls (VAWG) globally, has over the last two decades undertaken reforms to address impunity for VAWG and provide women greater access to security and justice. This has included recognizing the gender-based killing of women as a unique crime (femicide), criminalizing physical, sexual, psychological, and economic VAWG, and establishing courts and public prosecutors that specialize in cases related to VAWG.

To what degree are these reforms combating impunity for VAWG and reshaping societal acceptance of VAWG? Are they altering women and men’s perceptions of state and nonstate systems of security and justice? Are they changing women’s decisions about whether to report, and to whom?

To answer these questions, we draw on more than fourteen months of collaborative, cross-disciplinary research between 2016 and 2023, much of it supported by the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. Research included interviews with activists, service providers, judges, and public prosecutors, as well as local authorities like police, midwives, community council leaders, and communal mayors. It also involved ethnographic observations in specialized VAWG courts; analyses of specialized VAWG court case files and data; and separate focus groups with Indigenous women and Indigenous men about gender norms, women’s rights, VAWG, and authority structures in their communities.

Absent broader efforts to address structural inequalities, the impacts of [violence against women and girls] reforms are unevenly experienced, with those most vulnerable to violence and most in need of support—including Indigenous women, lower-class women, and women in rural areas—benefiting the least.

Our findings show that new laws and criminal justice reforms are not enough to prevent and punish VAWG. In Guatemala, VAWG is criminalized but the government underfunds and undersupports the very institutions meant to implement VAWG laws and refuses to reform institutions like police that often obstruct women’s access to specialized institutions. Absent broader efforts to address structural inequalities, the impacts of VAWG reforms are unevenly experienced, with those most vulnerable to violence and most in need of support—including Indigenous women, lower-class women, and women in rural areas—benefiting the least.

There are still many barriers to reporting VAWG, including women’s economic dependence on men; community and familial norms that encourage women to put up with abuse; mostly male local authorities who are uninformed of or uncommitted to women’s rights; linguistic and geographical barriers for Indigenous women in rural areas; racial, class, and gender-based discrimination among state authorities; corruption and bribery in state offices; and long delays in legal processes that put women at risk of retaliatory violence. There is a widespread lack of trust of state institutions, particularly police, and therefore women may remain silent when experiencing violence. Others develop networks of solidarity amongst themselves and/or turn to local authorities like communal mayors or community council leaders who are unaffiliated with the criminal justice system and who may be ignorant of women’s rights. Among men, while there are some who are supportive of VAWG reforms, many feel confused about social and legal changes and feel left out of the conversation about women’s rights and gender norms.

We conclude that criminal justice reform must be accompanied by social justice reform that addresses extreme race, class, gender, and place-based structural inequalities. Our research also points to the importance of involving local authorities, even those who are not connected to the criminal justice system, in discussions about VAWG, as they are often more trusted by people, particularly in rural, Indigenous communities. Additionally, involving men in transforming gender norms and combating VAWG is crucial. This engagement should be collaborative in nature, draw on men’s ideas, provide them a space to discuss their experiences of violence and their confusion about shifting gender norms, and allow them to develop amongst themselves meaningful alternatives to the dominant forms of idealized masculinity.