Doña Paulina Ixpatá Alvarado stands with other Achi women outside a Guatemala City court. That afternoon, three ex-civil defense patrollers were found guilty of rape and crimes against humanity and sentenced to 40 years in prison each. Guatemala City, Guatemala
For four decades, a group of Indigenous Maya Achi women in Rabinal lived in the same communities as the men who had raped them, sometimes as neighbors. Guatemala’s civil war led to the genocide of thousands of Maya Achi people by the military and local state-backed paramilitary forces, who used sexual violence as a systematic weapon to subjugate Indigenous communities. In 2011, 36 women broke their silence, launching and winning a 14-year legal battle against their abusers. Their collective resilience is transforming a legacy of wartime impunity into a historic victory for justice.
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