In the 1980s, a civil war in Guatemala resulted in widespread violence, particularly against women and girls. Many women were abducted and subjected to sexual violence by civil-defense patrols. Four decades later, a group of these women united to seek justice against their attackers, culminating in a trial for their assailants. The trial represents their final opportunity to achieve justice as many are now elderly, and a verdict could ensure accountability for past crimes committed during the war.
In the early 1980s, a brutal civil war was raging in remote Guatemalan villages, like those around the town of Rabinal, where violence left the countryside dotted with mass graves.
Local forces backed by the government, known as civil-defense patrols, rounded up women and girls from surrounding communities, looking for anyone cooperating with so-called subversives.
Dozens of these women, of the region's Achi Mayan population, came together to prosecute their attackers for crimes against humanity.
What happened was against my will, said Candelaria Xolop Morales. They raped me, and it left me afraid.
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