A few hours later, Estrada’s body was found on a gravel path leading to the nearby village of Xecaracoj. She had been strangled. Her mobile phone and wallet were missing.

Estrada’s classmates, who went on to become key witnesses in the case, told police investigators that the person she had left with was her ex-boyfriend, 18-year-old Óscar Zacarías Ordóñez.

The couple had been secretly going out together for a year, as the girl’s parents did not approve of the relationship. They had broken up but continued to see each other from to time to time.

Estrada had confided to her friends that she thought she was pregnant and that her ex-boyfriend had insisted that she told no-one.

The call log handed over by her mobile service provider showed that the student had received several calls from a number in the neighbouring municipality of Olintepeque, where her ex-boyfriend lived.

The police searched his house and found Estrada’s mobile phone and wallet, together with other chilling evidence – two photographs of the young woman’s dead body inside the vehicle. They had been taken at 10.52 am on the day she was found.

Based on this evidence and the witness statements provided by Estrada’s friends, the Public Prosecutor’s Office tried Zacarías Ordóñez for femicide – a gender motivated killing – at a new special court dealing with violence against women.

On 26 October, he was sentenced to 50 years in prison.

Femicide also takes place when the state re-victimises the victim of femicide by its inaction and failure to give the case the attention warranted. Some specialists consider femicide to be a state crime.

Alarming figures

Estrada is one of the 759 women who were violently murdered in Guatemala in 2013, according to the National Institute of Forensic Science (INACIF). The figure represents a seven per cent increase on 2012.

Twenty one per cent of these women were strangled, as was the case with Estrada, 69 per cent were shot, nine per cent were stabbed and one per cent were found dismembered.

Over the last five years, 3,577 women have been murdered in Guatemala, the country with the highest rate of femicide in the region, according to the Council of Ministers for Women’s Affairs in Central America and the Dominican Republic (COMMCA), which is part of the Central American Integration System (SICA).

Guatemala also ranks as one of the world’s most violent countries, with a murder rate of 48 per 100,000, compared with a Latin American average of 25 per 100,000 and a global average of nine per 100,000 people.

It has also been branded the world’s most dangerous country for trade unionists.

The trial of Zacarías Ordóñez was conducted by the Criminal Court for Crimes of Femicide and Other Forms of Violence against Women in Quetzaltenango, which is one of the five departments that have introduced special courts to deal with gender-based crimes following the passing of the Femicide Act in 2008.

“The first thing achieved with this law was to give greater visibility to the issue of violence against women and the fact that femicide exists, not as a corollary of homicide but as a result of unequal power relations.

“That is why there are specific human rights to help these groups free themselves from these unequal conditions,” explained Aliadas Hilda Morales Trujillo, head of the Department for the Coordination of Victim Support within the Public Prosecutor’s Office.

Significant progress

In 2010, Guatemala became the first country in the world to introduce these special courts.

The results are encouraging.

According to the figures provided by the Centre for Judicial Information, Development and Statistics (CIDEJ), while less than 10 per cent of the femicide cases and other crimes of violence against women tried in ordinary courts lead to sentencing and convictions, the figure is over 30 per cent in the special courts.

“The difference lies in the fact that the people working in these courts have undergone thorough training [in gender issues]. It opens their minds, helping them to overcome the stereotypes that perpetuate violence, such as ‘women enjoy being beaten’ or only ‘poor women are beaten’,” explained Morales.

Most of the judges handling the cases are women. The courts also have psychologists and social workers and child-care facilities are provided so that women have someone to look after their children while they testify and child care does not prevent them from taking part in the hearings.

“This has increased the number of victims attending the hearings. In the past, they would file their complaint and then not turn up to court. We have managed to empower them and persuade them to persevere,” said Judge Ana María Rodríguez.

Another new development is that these courts register the victims’ ethnic origin, age and relationship with the assailant; these statistics are crucial to research.

The figures provided by the CIDEJ show that over 60 per cent of the aggressors, such as Zacarías Ordóñez, are the women’s husbands or partners.

Despite the progress made, Judge Miriam Méndez of the Femicide Court in the central department of Guatemala, points out that shortcomings in the use of forensic evidence and excessive reliance on testimonies continue to be a problem.

Angélica Valenzuela, head of the Centre for Research, Capacity Building and Support for Women (CICAM), added that these special courts are not yet operating throughout the country.

As the dismal statistics show, while gender-based justice is a beacon of hope in the fight against impunity, much still remains to be done to guarantee Guatemalan women their right to a life without violence.

This article was first published on Noticias Aliadas