We are honored to welcome Irma A. Velasquez Nimatuj, Mayan K'ichee' anthropologist, as part of the Women Justice Group Series.
This presentation focuses on the problematic nature of court-ordered reparations and the struggle for human rights for indigenous people, specifically women, in Guatemala. By discussing the Sepur Zarco case, named after an almost unknown q’eqchi’ community in El Estor, Izabal department of northeast Guatemala, I would like to show how racism, sexual violence, and poverty coalesced during the Guatemalan genocide period from 1975 to 1988. This coalescence, in turn, not only increased the violent nature of state-sponsored human rights abuses, but also illustrates how those oppressions continue to affect indigenous war survivors today.
