Urge Your Senator to Cosponsor S. Res. 178

by Danny Fisher

Amnesty International USA is currently organizing a campaign to encourage U.S. Senators to cosponsor and support Senate Resolution 178, which was introduced May 1, 2007, by Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM).

    The resolution concerns the killing of over 2,500 women and girls in Guatemala since 2001. The resolution expresses the sympathy of the Senate to the families of women and girls murdered in Guatemala and encourages the US government to work with Guatemala to bring an end to these crimes. It also urges Guatemala to bring its domestic laws in line with international standards by recognizing domestic violence and sexual harassment as criminal acts and calls on President Bush and Secretary of State Rice to support efforts by the Guatemalan government to train and equip special police and prosecutorial units in charge of the investigations.

    Amnesty International has found that many of the more than 2,500 women and girls who have been murdered in Guatemala since 2001 were first subjected to abduction, sexual assault, or brutal mutilation. The lack of thorough and impartial investigations into these and other violent crimes against women is unacceptable and contributes to a climate of impunity that perpetuates the violence. According to Amnesty International, as of June 2006, only two convictions had taken place in over six hundred cases of women reported murdered in 2005.

    The Guatemalan government committed specifically to protecting the lives of women in 1995 when it ratified the Convention of Belém do Pará (The Inter-American Convention for the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence against Women) and the UN Convention to Eliminate all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Yet violence against women in the family and sexual harassment have not been criminalized. The office of the Guatemalan Special Prosecutor for Crimes Against Women receives approximately 800 reports of domestic violence per month, with some of those cases ending in murder. If Guatemalan law were to provide for prison sentences in cases of domestic violence, such murders might be prevented.

Please consider writing a letter to your senator by following this link.