Guatemalan Women Healing Toward Justice: The Case of Sepur Zarco

This year, the Alliance provided legal support and psychological accompaniment to 15 Maya Q’eqchi women from Sepur Zarco when, for the first time in Guatemala, they successfully tried sexual slavery as a crime against humanity. The Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA) put on this speaking tour in an effort to increase U.S. awareness of the consequences of US militarization, strengthen cross-border solidarity on the global movement for gender justice, and to connect Guatemalan human rights defenders with groups in the US working to end gender-based violence. About the Lecturer: Maudí Tzay is a psychologist with the Community Studies and Psychological Action Team (ECAP), which is part of the Alliance for Breaking the Silence and Ending Impunity, a coalition of three Guatemalan social justice organizations with the shared goal of ending impunity for sexual violence committed during the internal armed conflict. The Alliance was created in recognition of the hurdles that women, and especially indigenous women, face in coming forward to speak out against sexual violence