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Guatemala - where it's dangerous to be a woman
Since 2001, it is estimated that more than 2,500 women and girls have been brutally murdered in Guatemala - with only 3 percent of the cases making it to court.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
By Robert Duncan See all articles by this author
Independence Day parade in Guatemala.
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Guatemalan women not only have one of the shortest lifespan's in Central America, but a report claims they are also the victims of a rising gender-based violent crimes.

The plight of women in Guatemala is the subject of an Amnesty International report titled "Guatemala: no protection, no justice: killings of women in Guatemala." In the first eight months of 2004 more than 300 women were killed, up from 250 in 2003, and 184 in 2002, according to an Associated Press article last year, which noted that many of the women were "simply in the wrong place at the wrong time." According to the Guatemalan authorities, 1,188 women and girls were murdered between 2001 and 2004. To date, according to the Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office, only 9 percent of the cases have been investigated.

In a different report by the Washington Office in Latin America notes that "since 2001, it is estimated that more than 2,500 women and girls have been brutally murdered in Guatemala. While officials statistics are not fully reliable, police data shows a continuous increase in the murders of women from 313 in 2002 to 351 in 2003, 531 in 2004, 580 in 2005, and close to 600 in 2006. Most of the victims were young and poor, and in many cases, the victims were raped, strangled, decapitated or otherwise mutilated. Progress in the investigation of the murders of women has been fraught with numerous shortcomings, including a lack of technical capacity to preserve crime scenes, interrogate witnesses, and collect and preserve evidence, as well as a lack of political will to resolve the murders."

According to a late-January Human Rights Commission, in the case of women being murdered only 3 percent of the cases actually make it to court, as reported by the Guatelmala Solidarity Network.

Listing cases of murders, WOLA noted that in the August 12, 2005 murder of 19-year-old law student Claudina Isabel Velásquez the investigation was hampered by the prejudices and discriminatory attitudes of the authorities handling the investigation. Claudina Isabel was categorized as a “nobodyâ€