We wrote ahead of the 85th previous session of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (“the Committee”) and its review of Guatemala to highlight the spaces of fear related to the Government of Guatemala’s compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). This presentation addresses Articles 1, 10, 11 and 12 of the Convention and covers access to education School closures due to Covid-19, discrimination and violence against lesbian, bisexual and transgender women, and access to abortion
Access to schooling Covid-19-related school closures (Articles 1, 10)
From March 2020 to March 2022, in reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic, schools in Guatemala were absolutely closed for 33 weeks and partially open for 53 weeks. [1] From March 2020 to February 2021, 4. 2 million students lost at least three-quarters of instruction due to school closures set up to restrict the spread of the Covid-19 virus. [2] In February 2021, the Ministry of Education partially reopened schools, providing instruction through a combination of distance and hybrid learning. [3] In May 2022, the ministry announced its goal of resuming face-to-face categories and published the protection protocols to be implemented. [4]
Teachers were aware of their students’ abnormal participation in the closure of distance learning schools, due to limited parental involvement; limited resources, adding Internet access, gadgets or manuals; or living in a rural area. In Guatemala, only 15% of families had access to the web in 2021, creating a significant barrier to online learning. [5]
The Ministry of Education set up distance learning television programs, which students had to watch, then paint and send a photo of their paintings to their instructors. “The show airs on a channel that can’t be seen in certain areas. “said a number one school instructor in a Guatemalan town. [6] “I have colleagues in central schools in [neighboring Antigua] who tell me they do Zoom meetings or submit assignments through [Google] Classroom. Those of us who come from the villages do not have access to this technology.
Teachers did not do well and many had to buy fabrics for themselves and their students. At the beginning of the pandemic, an instructor told Human Rights Watch that she had to pay out of pocket for the fabrics her students needed. , adding photocopies of their tasks and transportation to their homes to deliver them. “The government and the Ministry of Education ask us a lot, but they don’t give us the means,” he said, describing the many obligations instructors without computers have. , printers, or a website good enough to provide instructions.
Students also faced limited support, making it difficult for them to learn, as many did not have access to phones, computers or textbooks. Even the phone garage or credits were an obstacle. The instructor said, “When [my students] had questions, many would call me and say, ‘Miss, remember me, I don’t have credits!
The number one school teacher said her efforts to offer maximum offline distance learning were not working for all her students, partly because most parents had very few literacy skills and may not be able to offer their children: “My challenge is that there are young people who get up late, They don’t do homework and fall behind. In July 2020 he estimated: “I would say that 40% do homework and study.
Without good enough social protections, the closure of schools due to covid-19 has left all active parents (plus teachers) without daycare. This has affected women in particular; Nearly two-thirds of the world’s coaching staff are women. [7] In a global report, Human Rights Watch found that many teachers who were also parents during lockdown spoke of more stress, increased workloads, and more costs similar to homeschooling and supervising their children’s learning.
A number one schoolteacher interviewed by Human Rights Watch, who was a widow and cared for her two daughters at home, said she didn’t find time to help her daughters learn: “We were given orders as teachers that we have to work from 7:30 a. m. M. a 12:30 p. m. , solve any problem, create painting materials, but without helping our children, or anything else.
The instructor described the limited resources for the instructors, their scholarships and daughters, to the detriment of learning their scholarships and daughters. “For her virtual classes, one of my daughters has to use the phone and the other the computer, so in the moments, I can’t use either. “She continued, “My schoolchildren send me questions over the phone and I can’t answer because my daughter uses it. I have to interrupt it so I can answer a student’s phone.
The instructor also took on other day-to-day jobs as an instructor, helping prepare food for her school’s monthly food distribution to students and their families, many of whom had limited resources. “It’s like I have twice as much,” he said. It’s very difficult. “
Human Rights Watch recommends that the Committee urge Guatemala to:
Human Rights Watch recommends that the Committee urge Guatemala to:
Discrimination and violence against lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons (arts. 1, 10 and 11)
Discrimination and violence against lesbian, bisexual and transgender women is widespread in Guatemala. In 2020, Human Rights Watch published a report documenting abuses against Guatemalan LGBT people, adding violence through the circle of relatives, intimate partners, gangs, and state security forces, as well as discrimination in access to employment and education. [8] The report found that the Guatemalan government fails to adequately protect LGBT people. In Guatemala, Human Rights Watch interviewed 7 lesbian or bisexual women and 19 trans women, who shared that they had personally experienced violence or discrimination discovered on their gender identity or sexual orientation. [9]
Legal and context
Guatemala does not have a comprehensive civil law on non-discrimination that explicitly protects others from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, nor does it have a legal procedure for gender popularity for other transgender people.
The Attorney General’s Office seeks to track anti-LGBT hate crimes. In 2014, through its case control system, SICOMP, the Attorney General’s Office brought a box that the official receiving a complaint can check if the user filing the complaint is known as LGBT. N. A. , who accompanied another trans woman to record a complaint after she was assaulted, said: “The prosecutor who helped us addressed her like a man. He told me it was unimaginable to put “trans woman” on the record. We asked him to do it, but he said, ‘No. ‘” [10]
The office, in principle, helps keep records on the sexual orientation or gender identity of crime victims and complainants. The Guatemalan government told Human Rights Watch that it had files on 51 criminal court cases between 2016 and 2019 in which an LGBT user was a victim. They said 4 of those crimes resulted in convictions. [11] Even with systems in place to track anti-LGBT hate crimes, other LGBT people in Guatemala said impunity was the norm.
In 2008, Guatemala followed a law opposing femicide and another bureaucracy of violence against women, adding physical and sexual violence. The law has also rarely resulted in convictions. [12] Guatemalan authorities have stated that the femicide law does apply to trans women because they are “biological women. “[13]
Domestic violence (art. 1)
Lesbian, bisexual and trans women in Guatemala revel in domestic violence at the hands of family members or intimate partners. E. P. , a 24-year-old trans woman interviewed by Human Rights Watch, said that when she was 15, her mother told her to avoid being a “” and threw an iron at her, hitting her on the side of her head and causing her to bleed that required hospital treatment. [14] Guatemala’s Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office has also reported cases of domestic violence against LGBT people, specifically violence against lesbian and bisexual women through former male partners. [15]
Gang violence (Article 1)
Street gangs, adding the two factions of the 18th and the Mara Salvatrucha thirteen (MS-thirteen) are active in Guatemala, especially in urban areas. [16] Two transgender women interviewed through Human Rights Watch said they had experienced violence or death threats obviously related to gangs. and discriminatory police response.
K. W. , a trans woman from Izabal County, told Human Rights Watch that at age 16 she raped seven men she knew as gang members, causing injuries so severe that she had to be hospitalized for 18 days. [17]
The Trans Reinas de los Angeles Noche (OTRANS) doctor, who works with trans sex workers, fled to Mexico in 2016 after gang members extorted and threatened to kill her for not paying. She said gang members had already killed other trans women in Quetzaltenango and that she had taken the threats seriously. When she arrived in Mexico she did not know how to apply for asylum and after 3 days there she was deported. [18]
Violence and harassment by state security forces (art. 1)
Human Rights Watch spoke to three others who described abuses by state security forces, adding Guatemalan police and armed forces.
R. E. , a trans woman from Guatemala City, has suffered several cases of police abuse. In one example, he also assaulted through police while on the street with another trans friend in 2014 or 2015: “A police officer hit me in the jaw. “And for the next two weeks you may just drink liquids with a straw. . . He threatened to kill me. ” [19]
S. V. , executive director of the group OTRANS, told Human Rights Watch that other LGBT people do not register court cases opposing police about violence or harassment because they worry about being victimized. Know on the same day who recorded a complaint against him. You’re afraid they’ll kill you,” S. V. dit. [20]
In two cases, interviewees cited abuses committed by members of the Guatemalan armed forces. In one case, K. W. described being forced to perform oral sex on six infantrymen. [21] G. D. , the executive director of the HIV organization Gente Positiva, which advocates for LGBT rights but is also involved in other human rights mobilizations, described cases of obvious surveillance of Positive People through infantrymen in April 2018 and January 2019. [22]
Discrimination in (Article 10)
There is no law explicitly prohibiting discrimination against LGBT scholars in Guatemala, and the Ministry of Education has no rules to prevent harassment based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
Human Rights Watch interviewed 3 who said they experienced bullying and discrimination at school for presenting symptoms of sexuality or non-normative gender expression, echoing reports documented in other studies. [23] For trans people, harassment and discrimination have in some cases led to a general denial of the right to education.
K. W. said that since the age of nine she had been the victim of attempted sexual assault and bullying at school because of her gender expression. He left school at age 10, having finished 3rd grade:
An instructor tried to touch me when I was a little girl. I told my mother. No one listened to me, not even my mother, beat me for lying. The other schoolchildren threw me into a swamp, beat me and broke my arm. That’s what happens when you look like that. When I turned 10, my father told me he wasn’t going to [pay for] teaching me because I was embarrassed. [24]
O. G. , a 21-year-old lesbian from Jalapa, described how she and other lesbian friends were sexually harassed by classmates: “Some boys threw jocote seeds at us saying we were lesbians. . . There are comments like, ‘Do you want to judge a man. ‘” [25]
Discrimination in employment (art. 11)
Human Rights Watch interviewed five trans women, all of whom described unpublic acts of employment discrimination and added that they had been fired or rejected in the first position because they were trans. N. A. , a 42-year-old trans woman who runs a collective of trans sex staff in Guatemala City, said she trained as a cook and pastry chef but faced discrimination while running restaurants: “Here, if we sell food, other people may not buy from us because they say we have HIV. [26] Sharing some other paintings delight in that he did not succeed, he said: “It’s the same: rejection and discrimination. ” [27]
Y. U. , an activist with REDMMUTRANS (Multicultural Network of Trans Women), summed up discrimination in the employment of trans women: “We don’t have to work in Guatemala. They ask us about our identity, not our qualifications. ” [28]
Recent legislative proposals
A recent legislative proposal discriminates against LGBT people, especially trans people, and limits the provision of comprehensive sexuality education to children.
In December 2021, twenty-one lawmakers from the Congressional Education, Science, and Technology Committee unanimously passed House Bill 5940, which uses the rhetoric of protecting youth and youth from “gender identity disorders” to justify a blatantly discriminatory measure that would prohibit the dissemination of any data about transgender identity in school sex education curricula. [29] The bill would also require media outlets to label systems with transgender content, which the bill equates with pornography, as “not recommended” for youth under 18. The bill threatens to deepen existing prejudices and stereotypes that fuel violence against LGBT people.
Failure to provide academics with age-appropriate and science-based data on gender and sexuality, aggregating data on scholars’ sexual and reproductive health, and prohibiting teachers from providing recommendations and learning structures on those topics, violates scholars’ right to information.
The bill is now about to be presented to the full Congress, where it is expected to go through 3 debates in Congress and a final vote before the law.
Human Rights Watch recommends that the Committee urge Guatemala to:
Human Rights Watch recommends that the Committee urge Guatemala to:
Access to abortion (Article 12)
The Observatory of Sexual and Reproductive Rights reported more than 60,000 teenage and female pregnancies in July 2022, adding 1,323 among women aged 10 to 14. [30] Guatemalan law considers all women under the age of fourteen who engage in sexual relations as victims of sexual violence. .
According to current law, abortion is only legal when the life of the pregnant woman or girl is in danger, and carries a variety of one to twelve years in prison. This is interpreted as prompt and imminent death.
Several foreign human rights bodies, such as the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and the Human Rights Committee, have called on Guatemala to decriminalize and legalize abortion and guarantee access to safe abortion services. . [31] However, in March 2022, Guatemala’s Congress passed a bill that would have limited the already limited reproductive rights of women and women in the country, which was later abandoned. [32] However, the country still lags far behind the rest of the region in detecting women’s rights and protecting their reproductive health.
Human Rights Watch recommends that the Committee urge Guatemala to:
Human Rights Watch recommends that the Committee urge Guatemala to:
[1] UNESCO Institute for Statistics, “Covid-19 Education Response: Country Dashboard: Guatemala,” March 2022, https://covid19. uis. unesco. org/global-monitoring-school-closures-covid19/country-dashboard/ (accessed September 26, 2022).
[2] UNICEF data, COVID-19, and closures: a year of school interruption, March 2021, https://data. unicef. org/resources/one-year-of-covid-19-and–closures/ (accessed September 26, 2022).
[3] H. Montenegro and M. Barrientos, “Mineduc anticipates how the new covid-19 measures will be implemented in educational centers https://www. prensalibre. com/guatemala/comunitario/” (“Mineduc anticipates how the new covid-19 measures will be implemented in educational centers-breaking/ (accessed September 27, 2022); “UNICEF congratulates children and the Government of Guatemala on the smooth and safe return to school,” UNICEF press release, February 16, 2021, https://www. unicef. org/guatemala/comunicados-prensa/unicef-felicita-children-and-government-of-Guatemala-for-back-school (accessed September 27, 2022).
[4] “Green light for face-to-face classes in Guatemalan schools,” Prensa Latina, May 23, 2022, https://www. prensa-latina. cu/2022/05/23/luz-verde-a-clases-presenciales-in-schools-of-Guatemala (accessed September 27, 2022); Gustavo Villagrán, “Mineduc prepares face-to-face classes,” Diario de Centro América, May 5, 2022, https://dca. gob. gt/noticias-guatemala-diario-centro-america/mineduc-prepara-clases-presenciales/ (accessed September 26, 2022); “Establish sanitary norms of prevention and COVID-19 in educational centers,” Agencia Guatemalteca de Noticias, May 23, 2022, https://agn. gt/establecen-norma-sanitaria-de-prevencion-y–del -covid -19-en-centros-educativos/ (accessed September 27, 2022).
[5] World Bank, UNICEF, and UNESCO, Two Years Later: Saving a Generation (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022), https://www. unicef. org/guatemala/media/4676/file/dos% 20 years later, saving a generation. pdf (accessed September 27, 2022).
[6] Human Rights Watch interview with teacher, San Juan Gascón, Antigua, Guatemala, July 7, 2020.
[7] UNESCO and team from the Global Education Monitoring Report, “Gender in education: a key size of inclusion,” September 2020, https://unesdoc. unesco. org/ark:/48223/pf0000374448 (accessed April 2, 2021); and UNESCO, Global Education Monitoring Report 2019: Building bridges for gender equality (Paris: UNESCO, 2019), https://unesdoc. unesco. org/ark:/48223/pf0000368753, p. 30.
[8] Human Rights Watch, “Every Day I Live in Fear”: Violence and Discrimination Against LGBT People in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, and Obstacles to Asylum in the United States (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2020), https://www. hrw. org/report/2020/10/07/every-day-i-live-fear/violence-and-discrimination-against-lgbt-people-el-salvador.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Human Rights Watch interview with N. A. , Guatemala City, August 12, 2019.
[11] Human Rights Watch requested data on the types of crimes and the sexual orientation or gender identity of victims. The Attorney General’s Office reported that there were convictions in cases of sexual assault in 2017, murder of a trans user in 2018 and murder and rape in 2019. It is in the 2018 murder case that the victim’s sexual orientation or gender is officially recorded. Public Ministry, IPU RESOLUTION/G 2019 — 005356 / bglpda, IPU EXP 2019-00254, July 22, 2019, registered in Human Rights Watch.
[12] Héctor Ruiz, “No Justice for Guatemalan Women: An Update Twenty Years After the First Law on Violence Against Women in Guatemala,” Hastings Women’s Law Journal vol. 29:1, Winter 2018, https://cgrs. uchastings. edu /sites/default/files/Hector Ruiz_Guatemala VAW Article_2017. pdf (accessed September 11, 2020).
[13] Ibid. ; REDLACTRANS, La noche es otro país: impunidad y violencia Mujeres trans defensoras de derechos humanos en América Latina, May 2012, http://redlactrans. org. ar/site/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Violencia-e- impunidad -English1. pdf (accessed September 11, 2020), p. 30.
[14] Human Rights Watch interview with E. P. (pseudonym), Huehuetenango, August 5, 2019.
[15] Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman, Baseline LGBTI, https://drive. google. com/file/d/1q5Dn82UF_yTKfR6PRcKzqmtIFzyRt0qC/view (accessed October 12, 2022).
[16] “Guatemala Profile,” InSight Crime, https://www. insightcrime. org/guatemala-organized-crime-news (accessed October 12, 2022).
[17] Human Rights Watch interview with K. W. , Los Angeles, December 12, 2019.
[18] Human Rights Watch interviews with M. D. , Quetzaltenango, August 7, 2019, and by telephone, August 4, 2020.
[19] Human Rights Watch interview with R. E. , Guatemala, August 12, 2019.
[20] Human Rights Watch interview with S. V. , Guatemala, May 10, 2019.
[21] Human Rights Watch interview with K. W. , Los Angeles, December 12, 2019.
[22] Human Rights Watch interview with G. D. , Guatemala City, May 9, 2019.
[23] María Isabel Carrascosa Coll, “Bullying homophobico,” Plaza Pública (Guatemala), July 2, 2014, https://www. plazapublica. com. gt/content/bullying-homofobico (accessed October 4, 2020); Carlos Caceres et al. , “‘It was like going every day to the slaughterhouse. . . ‘Homophobic bullying in public educational institutions in Chile, Guatemala and Peru'” (“‘It was like going every day to the slaughterhouse. . . ‘Homophobic bullying in public educational institutions in Chile, Guatemala and Peru”), November 2013, https://unesdoc. unesco. org/ark: /48223/pf0000229323 (accessed September 11, 2020), doi:10. 13140/RG. 2. 1. 3291. 8888.
[24] Human Rights Watch interview with K. W. , Los Angeles, December 12, 2019.
[25] Human Rights Watch interview with O. G. , Jalapa, August 13, 2019.
[26] Human Rights Watch interview with N. A. , Guatemala City, August 12, 2019.
[27] Human Rights Watch interview with N. A. , Guatemala City, August 12, 2019.
[28] Human Rights Watch interview with Y. U. , Guatemala, May 10, 2019.
[29] “Guatemala: Trans Bill Threatens Rights,” Human Rights Watch communiqué, January 24, 2022, https://www. hrw. org//2022/01/24/guatemala-proyecto-de-ley-contra-trans-amenaza-a-derechos-derechos.
[30] Reproductive Health Observatory, “Pregnancies and birth registries of adolescent mothers – year 2022,” 2022, https://osarguatemala. org/embarazos-y-registro-de-nacimientos-2022/ (accessed October 10, 2022).
[31] UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, “Concluding observations on the combined fifth and sixth periodic reports of Guatemala,” CRC/C/GTM/CO/5-6, February 28, 2018, http://docstore. ohchr. org/selfservices/fileshandler. ashx?enc=6qkg1d/ppricaqHKB7YHSK70ICKWAKXW8HLJU1YKA3MHDARGNCBVCXITQP9KX9RJXYTQODTZXMWIPAG4BUZXG07NLOJ1W0OYK8G8JUVIVIVEUVEUVEUVEUVEUVEUVEUVEUVIV United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination opposed to Women, “Concluding observations on the combined 8th and 9th periodic report of Guatemala,” CEDAW/C/GTM/CO/8- 9, November 22, 2017, https://documents-dds-ny. un. org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N17/394/08/PDF/N1739408. pdf?OpenElement (consulted on October 12, 2022); United Nations Human Rights Committee, “Consideration of Reports Submitted through States Parties Article 40 of the Covenant, Concluding Observations of the Human Rights Committee, Guatemala,” CCPR/C/GTM/CO/3, April 19, 2012, https:// documents-dds-ny. un. org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G12/420/98/PDF/G1242098. pdf?OpenElement (accessed October 12, 2022).
[32] “Guatemalan Congress Suspends Abortion Approved Last Week,” ABC News, March 15, 2022, https://abcnews. go. com/International/wireStory/guatemala-congress-shelves-abortion–passed-past-week-83470946 (accessed October 10, 2022); Natalie Kitroeff, Oscar López, and Jody García, “Guatemalan Women Face Up to 10 Years in Prison Under New Abortion Law,” New York Times, March 9, 2022, https://www. nytimes. com/2022/03/09/world/americas/guatemala-abortion-prison. html (accessed October 12, 2022).