Training events have been held with participation from CONAPREVI member institutions and organizations, which include the Non-violence against Women network. The Women and Gender Analysis Unit was set up in the Judiciary, with the following objective,systematic gender mainstreaming in the judiciary, built into the process of planning and execution of activities in the various units:

One of the working strategies developed by the Judiciary involves promoting women’s human rights, particularly the right to a life free from violence. This aims to guarantee women access to justice, offering them services with a human face, as part of the ethical and committed institutional response to prevent, sanction and eradicate the social problem of violence faced by women. For this purpose, the Women’s Unit, in coordination with the Institutional Training Unit, has incorporated gender into the following programmes:

Initial training programme (targeting candidates for justices of the peace and judges of courts of first instance)

Continuous Training and Updating Programme, as part of the permanent training of magistrates, judges, and administrative staff. The various training activities include: “Workshops on gender and women’s human rights”; workshop for community judges on the Act against Femicide and other Forms of Violence against Women; self-care workshops for staff dealing with cases of violence against women; and workshops using the Caminando en tus zapatos [Standing in your shoes] methodology.

In 2009 a pilot project was implemented for the semi-attendance diploma course entitled “Updating and specialization on femicide and other forms of violence against women in the human rights framework”, targeting judges of first instance, sentencing judges, justice of the peace and family court judges, together with social work and psychology staff of the departments of Guatemala, Sacatepéquez and Chimaltenango. A total of 53 people graduated from this activity, and work is currently ongoing to prepare the second edition of the diploma course, which will be aimed particularly at the staff of courts specializing in the crimes of femicide and other forms of violence against women.

The Women and Gender Analysis Unit of the Judiciary has implemented an obligatory diploma course for judges in courts of first instance, which is being institutionalized through a continuous training programme. The course provides training on women’s human rights standards, and on national and international law; it has three gender modules, and is seen as progress in terms of implementing the aforementioned law.

The statistical data accompanying this report clearly show that training events are insufficient in themselves to guarantee the enforcement of the law being discussed in this report. Necessary measures include the implementation of verification mechanisms to follow up training; the use of disciplinary regime administration systems to verify the service that justice workers provide to survivors, and the protection they provide to legal rights and/or the extent to which those rights are susceptible to impairment owing to negligence or impunity.

SEPREM has followed up the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women, and the enforcement of the Act against Femicide and other Forms of Violence against Women. On that issue, and in coordination with CONAPREVI, steps have been taken to eradicate, prevent and punish violence against women, including a number of actions in PLANOVI- 2004-2014, as follows:

Training for public officials on violence against women and on the Act against Femicide and other Forms of Violence against Women.

Regional and national training of the use of the single record card (Boleta Única de Registro).

Advisory services for organizations on providing specialized services for comprehensive care for women survivors of violence.

Investigations into the causes and consequences of violence against women.

Compilation of statistics and other relevant information on the causes and consequences of violence against women.

Assistance in conceptualizing violence against women, domestic violence, and international law on the subject.

Participation in the monitoring mechanism of the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women, known as the Belém do Pará Convention.

In the light of these actions, commitments by SEPREM as the President’s representative in CONAPREVI and the mechanism responsible for overseeing the fulfilment of international agreements and treaties on behalf of women, has promoted its institutional strengthening and has provided political support to achieve its objectives. The main contributions include:

The various PLANOVI strategy lines, particularly actions for which the Government is responsible.

It has supported training processes in the framework of the Act against Femicide and other Forms of Violence against Women, for prosecutors and assistant prosecutors in the Public Prosecutor’s Office, and candidates as judges of first instance. The workshops were held nationally and regionally.

Support and advisory services were provided in preparing a protocol for dealing with victims of sexual violence, implemented by the Ministry of Public Health and Social Assistance.

As a technical support proposal, a comparative table was prepared to highlight the differences in application between the Act against Femicide and the Domestic Violence Act, the materials being prepared as part of the methodology applied in training workshops. Advisory services have been provided in the commissions for implementing PLANOVI in its various strategic areas.

As a member of the Research and Statistical Analysis Commission, it provided support in coordination meetings to prepare the National System of Information on Violence against Women. Participation in the review of the violence module of the Mother-Child Health Survey 2009.

Advisory support provided in forming the Interagency Network against Violence against Women in the municipality of Amatitlán, an action that was coordinated by SEPREM and CONAPREVI. This network consists of representatives of the Judiciary, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Ministry of Public Health and Social Assistance, the Municipality of Amatitlán, the Municipal Secretariat for Women, the Women’s Organization, Mujeres Amatitlánecas Organizadas Rompiendo el Silencio (MAORS) [Organized Amatitlán Women Breaking the Silence], SEPREM and CONAPREVI.

Support for the campaign on “Zero tolerance of violence against women”, which aims to mainstream the women’s human rights approach in public institutions.

As part of its mandate to participate in coordination mechanisms where required, SEPREM participated in the technical roundtable on violence coordinated by the Social Works Secretariat of the First Lady (SOSEP). The roundtable provided support for a diagnostic study on the institutional response to violence against women.

The technical roundtable on violence participated actively in launching the United Nations Secretary-General’s campaign for Latin America, the aim of which was to put an end to violence against women, in a comprehensive approach towards violence against women and girls. As part of that launch, a campaign against violence against women was implemented in conjunction with the Social Communication Secretariat of the Office of the President, targeting public officials.

Support has also been provided for the problem of human trafficking, in which SEPREM participated in the Interagency Commission to Combat Trafficking in Persons. In 2009, actions were coordinated to implement the Strategic Public Policy Plan against Trafficking in Persons, after a legal ruling had been issued on the viability of a specific law on the subject. As part of that coordination process, SEPREM also supported the government decision approving that policy and its to create an interagency commission.

As one of the members of the Central American Council of Ministers for Women (COMMCA), SEPREM presented the “Regional study on laws relating to human trafficking in Central America and the Dominican Republic and their application in Guatemala” and “The experience of women victims of trafficking in Central America and the Dominican Republic, and institutional actions”, as a contribution to making visible and denouncing the serious human rights violations suffered by an indeterminate but growing number of Central American and Dominican women.

E.Measures to change the social and cultural attitudes that are the fundamental causes of most forms of violence against women

CONAPREVI undertook a baseline study of social images on violence against women, and of the knowledge that men and women have on what should be done in cases of violence. Initially this was carried out in seven departments: Guatemala, Escuintla, Quetzaltenango, Alta Verapaz, Baja Verapaz, Chiquimula and Jutiapa. The study forms the basis of the National Campaign of Prevention and Awareness-Raising on Violence against Women that began in November 2009.

The campaign is expected to be permanent and is currently funded through international cooperation. Nonetheless, given the current situation of budget cuts and resource constraints, the campaign currently does not have sufficient funds to guarantee its permanency, to bring about change and impact on the population.

SEPREM has also been implementing media campaigns aimed at changing social stereotypes and dynamics. This strategy line directly targets the harmonized legislative agenda, in accordance with international treaties and conventions on women, which made it possible to develop the communications strategy by including concrete actions with the following objectives: improve information and knowledge on women’s rights by promoting them in the population at large, particularly among Guatemalan women, and decision-makers, to build greater awareness and knowledge of women’s rights and the laws and mechanisms that exist to ensure they are fully guaranteed and effective for Guatemalan women in all their diversity. For that purpose, local campaigns and actions were implemented with a view to changing social and cultural images that strengthen discrimination and exclusion.

III.OTHER CONTRIBUTIONS

A.Important activities

In February 2008, the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, launched the global campaign: “UNiTE to end violence against women”, in response to an international consensus in favour of eliminating violence against women and girl children. The campaign calls upon Governments, civil society, the private sector, communications media and the United Nations system itself to work together to prevent and eliminate violence against women and girls.

The regional chapter of the Secretary-General’s campaign “UNiTE to end violence against women” was held in Guatemala City. In that process, an important role was played by SEPREM, the Office of the First Lady and the Social Communications Secretariat of the Office of the President and other entities.

The basic objectives for the launch of the campaign in Guatemala were to call upon States to show responsibility for:

Enforcement of the laws.

An increase in government funds to implement laws, and the provision of comprehensive services.

Establishment of administrative reforms and reforms of the judiciary to eradicate impunity.

Support and response for women victims and survivors of violence in any of its forms.

Generate public awareness to build an egalitarian and non-violent society through:

Publicity for all forms of violence against women, including new types.

Citizen awareness-building that “Each and every one of us are protagonists of change.”

Construction of societies free from violence against women.

Promotion of greater action by the public and private sectors.

Involvement of children, adolescents and young people.

IV.Challenges and obstacles

The process of preparing and negotiating the Act against Femicide and other Forms of Violence against Women revealed the need to include crimes of sexual violence. Nonetheless, the text of the law only creates the crime of violence against women, listing among its manifestations sexual violence (sexual humiliation, forced prostitution, denial of the right to use family planning methods or adopt methods of protection against sexually transmitted diseases), but not including other types of offence in which sexual violence is perpetrated against women.

There is a contradiction in issuing regulations that provide legal protection for sexual freedom and security, without a women’s human rights approach, since these are conservatively and traditionally applied and interpreted with no specialization for women. Such is the case of the Act against Sexual Violence, Exploitation and Trafficking in Persons. As the victims of these crimes are, to repeat, mostly women and girls, the biased application and interpretation of this law is a disadvantage.

The Act against Sexual Violence, Exploitation and Trafficking in Persons (the VET Law) created the Secretariat against Sexual Violence, Exploitation and Trafficking in Persons (SVET), which is responsible for all actions to combat sexual violence, exploitation and human trafficking. Nonetheless, interagency coordination of the secretariat with the lead agency on violence against women (CONAPREVI) is virtually non-existent; and there is an overlap of functions between the two institutions, which weakens them and creates obstacles in dealing with violence against women.

Women victims of the crimes covered by the VET Law suffer from the lack of a comprehensive care programme, lack of knowledge and awareness among justice workers, the invisibility of the problem, and lack of access to justice, among other problems.

An example of a lack of awareness in applying the VET Law is the Ministry of Governance practice of carrying out operations (raids) to verify the legality of activities in nocturnal entertainment centres. As prostitution is not a crime in Guatemala, these operations are undertaken more as part of a policy to repatriate migrant women (deportation) who engage in this type of work, for citizen safety purposes. The operations in question target women found to be working in these places without identification documents. They are then taken to shelters run by the General Migration Department, where they are held until deportation. This is a violation of women’s human rights, particularly in the case of migrant women from neighbouring countries who do not have a home in Guatemala or the means to ensure their protection or safety.

When evidence of trafficking in women is uncovered in these operations, the women in question are often exposed to further violence as a result of a lack of coordination and allocation of resources by the State apparatus. The victims are repatriated and taken to the border areas by the authorities. Nonetheless, owing to a lack of adequate monitoring and suitable mechanisms to provide security in conjunction with the authorities in the women’s countries of origin, in many cases they fall victim again to the same crime at the hands of the same perpetrators or their networks. The exploiters or their accomplices wait for the women and bring them back to Guatemala, but in worse conditions and more exposed to danger.

Guatemala needs to upgrade its capacities to effectively sanction the crimes contained in the VET law; and this requires greater interagency coordination between SVET and CONAPREVI, adequate budgetary appropriations, and political will to strengthen the rule of law. Currently Guatemala needs institutional and budgetary strengthening to dismantle networks that traffic and exploit women and girls, because there are very strong links between these networks and drug trafficking, which fuel corruption and make it hard to punish those responsible, with impunity prevailing for the women.

Interagency coordination needs to be established through CONAPREVI with SVET and the Interagency Commission to Combat the Trafficking in Persons, which is chaired by the Ministry of Foreign Relations, to interpret and implement the Act against Femicide and other Forms of Violence against Women, and the Law against Sexual Violence, Exploitation and Trafficking in Persons, with a women’s human rights approach.

V.Related statistical data

One of the main challenges in statistics on violence against women is to unify the data generated by the various institutions that produce information on the subject. Each institution produces its own data within its jurisdiction; and sometimes, such as in the PNC, there are various units within institution that produced statistical information, such Victim Services, which collect data on domestic violence and rape, and the Joint Operational Division which has data on crimes against life and property, although the latter collect data from police stations nationwide. Of institutions that receive complaints of violence against women, the Judiciary produces quarterly information on cases of femicide and violence against women, cases initiated in the various courts across the country, data on the courts in which they are initiated and the region and department, as well as the sentences handed down, and whether the victims are women or young girls and adolescents.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office publishes other information including processes, the accused and victims, the number of women suffering physical and economic violence, by age level and department, and also information on cases that the institution has taken to the final “debate” stage of the process.

The INE, which is the lead information agency, is currently working with CONAPREVI, to create a national system of information on violence against women, because currently the INE only holds information on domestic violence. It is also proposed to reform the single record card of information on domestic violence; although, as INE notes, an attempt was made before the Act against Femicide came into force, but institutions that produce information on violence rejected the reform.

Lastly, another problem in producing statistics on violence is that institutions such as INE and PNC have resource constraints that prevent them employing the equipment and staff needed to generate information in question.

These limitations make it difficult to clearly represent the magnitude of the problem, namely the real number of victims of violence against women. Accordingly, justice workers firstly need to understand the Act against Femicide and other Forms of Violence against Women; and then criteria need to be unified, which requires good will on the part of all institutions that collect information on the problem.

Violence against women

The figure below provides information on cases that have been initiated in the various criminal courts in 2008 and 2009, according to the National Legal Documentation and Analysis Centre (CENADOJ). From the entry into force of the Act against Femicide until 2009, the date of the most recent consolidation of figures provided for this report, there has been no increase in the number of cases of violence against women in the country’s courts, which would suggest that the Act against Femicide is being increasingly applied.

In magistrates courts (Juzgados de Paz), where the complaints are received, the number of actions initiated in 2009 was up by over 2,000 in relation to the previous year’s figure; and, although this is not the same comparison period, it shows that women’s complaints are increasingly being treated as violence against women.

Sentencing and criminal courts dealing with drug trafficking and crimes against the environment are the courts in which sentences are handed down; but not all of the cases initiated between the entry into force of the Act against Femicide and September 2009 necessarily reach the final stage.

Figure I

Guatemala: Number of cases of violence against women lodged with the criminal courts, 2008-2009No. of casesMobile Magistrates CourtCourts of First Instance – mixedCourts dealingwith adolescentsin conflict with criminal lawCriminal Sentencing Courts, drug trafficking and environmental crimesCriminal Courts of First Instance, drug trafficking and environmental crimesCriminal Magistrates CourtMagistrate CourtsSource: National Centre for Legal Analysis and Documentation. Judiciary* Data collected between January and September 2009.

In 2008, only one case of violence against women reached the final stages, in the second court of Chiquimula, and the defendant was acquitted. In 2009 there were 20 convictions in the Criminal Sentencing Courts dealing with drug trafficking and crimes against the environment, five of them in the courts of the Department of Guatemala, and the others in the courts of the departments of Chiquimula, El Progreso, Chimaltenango, Jalapa, Quiché and Suchitepequez.

In the criminal courts first instance dealing with drug trafficking and crimes against the environment, there were 10 convictions on violence against women, of which three were handed down in the Department of Guatemala and seven in other departments.

Figure II

Guatemala: Number of convictions in cases of violence against women in the criminal courts, 2009Criminal Sentencing Courts, drug trafficking and environmental crimesCriminal Courts of First Instance, drug trafficking and environmental crimesSource: National Centre for Legal Analysis and Documentation. Judiciary.* Up to 8 December 2009.No. of sentences

Economic violence

Of the 306 cases of economic violence initiated in the country’s courts from 2008 until September 2009, a total of 29 reached the sentencing court, Court of penal sentence and criminal instance of drug trafficking and crimes against the environment. Only one case was initiated in courts of first instance (mixed branch) in 2008.

Guatemala: Number of cases of violence against women lodged with the criminal courts, 2008-2009No. of casesMagistrate courts Courts of First Instance –mixedCriminal Sentencing Courts, drug trafficking and environmental crimesCriminal Courts of First Instance, drug trafficking and environmental crimes20082009Source: National Centre for Legal Analysis and Documentation. Judiciary* Data collected between January and September 2009.Figure III

Figure IVGuatemala: Number of cases of violence against women taken to the “debate” stage by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, by department, January-November 2009

DepartmentVIOLENCE AGAINST WOMENSource: Public Prosecutor’s Office.

Femicide

Data on femicide are classified by the judiciary through the court in which the cases were initiated. In magistrate courts the number of cases of femicide from the entry into force of the law in 2008 until 2009 has increased by 17; there were four cases in the same period in courts dealing with minors in conflict with the law; and in courts of criminal first instance and drug trafficking and crimes against the environment, 41 cases initiated up to September 2009, the latest date of consolidation of the information in the Judiciary.

Guatemala: Number of cases of femicide initiated in the criminal courts, 2008-2009No. of casesMagistrate courtsCourts of first instance– mixedCourts dealing with adolescents in conflict with criminal lawCriminal Sentencing Courts, drug trafficking and environmental crimesCriminal courts of first instance, drug trafficking and environmental crimesCriminal magistrates courtSource: National Centre for Legal Analysis and Documentation. Judiciary* Data collected between January and September 2009.Figure VReports of femicide received by the Public P rosecutor’s Office, in 2008 and  2009

Table 1

Sentences handed down in the courts for the crime of femicide, 2008 and 2009

Year	Type of sentence
Conviction	Acquittal
2008	10	0
2009*	47	14
Total	57	14

Source : CENADOJ.

Sexual violence

When information on sexual violence is requested from the public institutions that produce information on this subject, the data provided refer to the number female rapes, whereas Article 13(n) of the Act against Femicide and other Forms of Violence against Women specifies that sexual violence also includes forced prostitution or denial of the use of family planning methods. As mentioned above, the information presented by the Judiciary and the Public Prosecutor’s Office does not provide a breakdown of violence against women in terms of the type of violence suffered. Accordingly, the data presented in this report relate to female rape collected by the National Civil Police, and there is little official information on human trafficking, in this case data on pornographic exploitation of minors, trafficking and remuneration for trafficking.

Figure VI

Guatemala: Number of cases of female rape, 2008-2009

JanuaryFebruaryMarchAprilMayJuneJulyAugustSeptemberOctoberNovemberDecemberSource: PNC.

Table 2Cases of sexual rape in the Republic of Guatemala, 2005-2009

Year	Totals
2005	1889
2006	1839
2007	1587
2008	2421
2009**	2194
TOTAL	9930

Source : CENADOJ .

Domestic violence

The following figure shows the number of victims of domestic violence in urban and rural areas, by age range. Victims in urban areas account for 52% of the total; and the age ranges with the highest percentages of victims are 25-29 years in both the urban and the rural areas.

Figure VII Number of victimsUrban areaRural area 0-4 5-9 10-14 15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 50-54 55-50 60-64 65 and overAge rangeSource: Statistics on domestic violence, INE 2007. Guatemala : women victims of domestic violence by area of occurrence and age range, 2007

NumberLiterateIlliterateSource: Statistics on domestic violence, INE 2007.\sFigure VIII Guatemala : Victims of domestic violence, by ethnic origin and literacy status ,  2007

The education-level variable in victims of domestic violence is shown in Figure V. Of the more-than 13 women victims of domestic violence, for this reason, 59% have just primary education; 20% of victims have a diversified academic level; and just 4% of victims have a university qualification. Together with illiteracy, low education levels play a key role in domestic violence.