for more information:
AI Report: Guatemala: No protection, no justice: killings of women in Guatemala
AI Press Release: Guatemala: Women in danger - killings of women and girls

Stop Action Date: 30 December 2007

When printing, note: all four margins are set at 0.6.
To fit all on one page: highlight starting with the next line below. Then tell your printer to print "selection."

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL -- Guatemala
Justice and Protection for Women and Girls

Claudina Isabel Velᳱuez Pa� a 19-year-old law student at the University of San Carlos in Guatemala City, left her house on 12 August 2005 to go to class, and disappeared. Her parents sought help - unsuccessfully - from local police stations, until the following morning when the morgue called them. Claudia's body had been found, raped and then killed by a shot to her head. As with over 1,500 other cases of women killed in Guatemala in the last few years, the authorities failed to respond to Claudina?s disappearance, and have failed, thus far, to investigate her killing.

Guatemalan women encounter widespread discrimination and violence in all areas of their lives. This wave of brutal killings and the state's minimal response reflects this discrimination in law and in practice. Amnesty International calls on the Guatemalan Government to demonstrate its political will to investigate these crimes, prosecute the offenders, and stop the killing!

Amnesty International is deeply concerned about the increase in brutal, sexually violent murders of women and girls in Guatemala, and the alarming lack of investigations and prosecutions of these serious crimes by the authorities. While the over 1,500 killings between 2001 and January 2006 reflect different motives and circumstances, a two-year Amnesty International study concludes that the brutality, mutilation and sexual violence in many of these killings amounts to torture and that the victims' gender determines whether and how the police and Public Ministry respond. To date, less than 9% of these cases have been investigated, and those few investigations are often problematic.

We the undersigned ask you to:
**Publicly condemn the abduction and murder of women and girls, and call for zero tolerance of violence against women, including clear instructions to officials acknowledging the serious nature of these crimes;
**Improve investigative procedures; addressing in particular the delayed responses to women's cases, the failures to collect evidence, the lack of inter-agency coordination, and deficient forensic examinations;
**Ensure the Public Ministry's Office of the Special Prosecutor for Crimes against Women has sufficient resources, and ensure official reports document gender-related crimes and their levels of violence;
**Increase access to justice for the victims' relatives, particularly those who lack funds for legal aid;
**Urge Congress to enact legislative measures that promote and protect women's rights;
**Urge Congress to bring legislation in line with international standards on violence against women, removing legal provisions that are discriminatory, and ensuring implementation and enforcement.

Name Address

1____________________________________________________________________________________

2____________________________________________________________________________________

3____________________________________________________________________________________

4____________________________________________________________________________________

5____________________________________________________________________________________

6____________________________________________________________________________________

7____________________________________________________________________________________

8____________________________________________________________________________________

9____________________________________________________________________________________

10___________________________________________________________________________________
SEND TO: Presidente de la Rep?a de Guatemala, Lic. Oscar Berger Perdomo, Casa Presidencial, 6a. Avenida 4-18 zona 1, Ciudad de Guatemala, GUATEMALA.
COPIES TO: Red de la No Violencia contra la Mujer, 2a calle 8-28 zona 1, Edificio Los Cedros 4o nivel, Ciudad de Guatemala, GUATEMALA.