Participants and audience members of last week's Guatemalan Femicide Conference learned how to take action against crimes against women on Thursday afternoon in St. Robert's Auditorium. The conference session "Action. What has been done? What can we do?" featured representatives of the Guatemalan government, a local Congresswoman's office and representatives from human rights groups including Amnesty International. These groups also offered to co-host events on campus that could raise awareness of issues such as femicide in Guatemala.
The Guatemalan Femicide Conference, which took place during the heart of Women's History Month, was organized by LMU alumni Tania Torres and Ana Moraga who have established a non-profit organization in Guatemala. The conference attracted hundreds of audience members beginning with the introduction ceremony on Wednesday night and throughout Thursday, when four different presentations on various aspects of femicide in the country were held in St. Robert's Auditorium. The conference was held to raise awareness about the 2,800-plus systematic murders of women that have occurred in Guatemala since 2000, according to statistics compiled by Amnesty International.
The conference explored definitions and theories of femicide as well as the culture of violence surrounding the crimes. It also featured victims and parents of victims, as well as what actions can be taken by students.
Benita Duran, deputy district director from the Office of California Congresswoman Hilda Solis, encouraged audience members to write to their representatives in support for House Resolution 100, which supports legislation to express sympathy to the victims and families and help bring an end to the crimes in Guatemala. The bill will go before the Foreign Affairs committee in the House of Representatives tomorrow.
"We need to keep this issue alive," Duran said. "It does affect the constituency and U.S. citizens who have family in these countries."
Dr. Alicia Partnoy, associate professor and chair of the Modern Languages and Literatures department and one of the co-sponsors of the event, said the overall response to the conference was strong from students. "We hope that they are getting engaged in active lobbying for Guatemala," she said Thursday.
Torres, LMU alumnus '05, is a co-founder of MuJER (Women for Justice, Education and Awareness) in Guatemala, which advocates women's rights in the country through education and literacy. She said after the conference that the issue of the femicide in Guatemala became particularly close to her when five women in the community she works in were murdered. The crimes, she said, were never investigated or reported. She said it is important for LMU students to understand the magnitude of these crimes.
"I feel it is very easy to become indifferent to a subject like this," Torres said. "It's a personal issue for me because I knew these women. We shouldn't have to read that point where we know someone who dies. A lot of classes are social justice based at LMU, and students should take advantage of that."
By doing [this conference] I feel we're already doing something about the problem," she continued. "This isn't just happening to women in Guatemala, but all over the world."
For more information on the conference, see 11 Burning Questions with Jessica Osorio, one of the student organizers of the event.
