violence

An urgent action was started this month to bring to justice those responsible for the massacre of eight people and over 30 wounded in Totonicapan, Guatemala, on October 4, and to campaign to protect the lives of the Guatemalan people.

The organisation Avaaz has taken up this campaign and has started a worldwide e-petition. We urge you to join in and promote it among your friends and family:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Justice_for_the_Recent_Totonicapan_Mass...

Clwyd Latin America Human Rights Group, Wales Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign, El Salvador Network and Cymru Cuba

For more information about the incident: http://www.ilps.info/index.php/en/current-events/105-statements-and-pres...

11am, 8 July 2012
 
Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1 (Holborn)
 
£3 on the door/free to members
 
Speaker Mike Phipps

Restorative justice has been widely used around the world as an essential element in peace processes, such as that of South Africa. But before a process of reconciliation can be undertaken, it is first necessary to establish truth about the past.

Mike Phipps recounts the history of violence in Central America and reflects on the distinct political, geographical and historical causes of conflict in the region. Looking at the attempts to bring to justice to those responsible for violence - governmental, corporate and external – the talk examines the effects of US policy in the region over several decades and asks whether any fundamental changes might be forthcoming that will help overcome the legacy of violence that haunts the region.

Inter Press Service reports that access to justice for women who suffer sexual violence in Central America and southern Mexico remains limited despite the high incidence of rape and other crimes, of which underage girls are the main victims.

"This kind of violence is the most hushed up, hidden, and invisibilised, which means it enjoys the greatest impunity," Marcela Suazo, the United Nations population fund (UNFPA) regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, told IPS.

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=108086

CAWN (Central America Women's Network) is holding an event to launch its report:
Intersecting Violences: A Review of Feminist Debates and Theoretical Approaches on Violence Against Women and Poverty in Latin America

Date: Thursday October 21st 2010 from 2pm – 5pm (followed by a drinks reception)

Chair: Baroness Miller, Vice-Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Central America

Speakers: Yakin Ertürk, former UN Special Rapporteur on VAW, its causes and consequences
Patricia Muñoz Cabrera, author of the research report and Chair of the Women in Development Europe (WIDE) network

Discussant: Maxine Molyneux, Director of the Institute for the Study of the Americas , University of London

ON 25th NOVEMBER, WE SPEAK OUT AGAINST WOMAN-KILLING IN MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA

25th November is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and the beginning of the annual 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence. To mark it, the Central America Women’s Network (CAWN) and the Honduran Women’s Studies Centre (CEMH) are holding three events condemning the rising violence against women and girls in the region and worldwide and calling for an end to this violence:

25 Nov, 4–6pm: Parliamentary meeting. House of Commons, London

26 Nov, 7.30pm: Film screening, followed by Q&A “Killer’s Paradise: Women Victims of Violence in Guatemala ”. Bolivar Hall, London , W1T.

27 Nov, 3-6pm: Seminar “Extreme forms of Violence against Women: Femicide in Mexico and Central America ”. Woburn House Conference Centre, London , WC1.