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Getting Away With Murder: Guatemala's Failure To Protect Women And Rodi Alvarado's Quest For Saftey, Angelica Chazaro, Jennifer Casey

UC Law SF Journal on Gender and Justice

A decade after the 1996 Peace Accords that marked the end of the 36-year internal armed conflict, Guatemala fails to provide basic protection of women's human rights. The plight of asylumseeker Rodi Alvarado and the spiked increase in the murders of Guatemalan women ("femicides") highlight the scope of Guatemala's lack of protection for women. After suffering ten years of brutal domestic violence, with the authorities ignoring her pleas for protection, Rodi fled Guatemala, seeking asylum in the United States. She is not alone in her suffering. Since 2001, over 1,500 women have been murdered in Guatemala, with the perpetrators enjoying …