Graduate School of Social Sciences MSc International Relations
Master Thesis
Gender based violence in El Salvador.
Femicides and Female Empowerment after the Civil War.
Word count: 20424
Supervisor: Dr. Abbey Steel Second Reader: Dr. Conny Roggeband
Submission date: 31st of August 2018 Author: Iracema Falkenreck Valverde
Acknowledgements
Many individuals played an important role in the completion of this paper and I would like to acknowledge them.
Firstly, I would like to thank my Supervisor, Dr. Abbey Steele, for her guidance and support. I express my gratitude to Dr. Conny Roggeband that has kindly agreed to be the second reader of this thesis.
I would also like to express my gratitude to my dear friends, Hannah, Lisa, Luis, Rollie, and Charly for always being there for me in their very own kind of ways.
I especially want to thank Jeanette Urquilla of ORMUSA for her support.
And finally, I would like to take the opportunity to express my eternal gratitude to my family who has always been there for me, especially in the most difficult of times.
Christopher, for all your patience.
Heinrich, for inspiring me to follow my own path and challenge myself. Urban, for your eternal support and positivity.
Klaus, for being my Papa.
Tita, por tanto amor que nos haz regalado.
And the biggest thank you, to my mother Xiomara. Mi mayor inspiración y motivación, mi héroe. This is for you.
Abstract
25 years after signing Peace Accords that ended the Salvadoran Civil War, El Salvador still suffers from high levels of violence. While during the civil war around 6,250 people were killed per year, in the 1990s the number of victims of killings a year reached between 8,700 and 11,000 (Bourgois 2001; Decesare 1998). Gender based violence in particular has been increasing since the end of the war. Violence against women, frequently in the form of femicides (the killing of women because they are women) are part of everyday life.
El Salvador is nowadays the country with the highest rates of femicides (Small Arms Survey 2012).
This paper therefore asks: What explains the rising gender based violence in El Salvador since the end of the civil war?
While gender based violence is rising, so is a rising empowerment of Salvadoran women observable in the same timeframe. Therefore, this research suggests that gender based violence is a backlash. Men want to cease the process of women’s empowerment that started as an immediate result of the civil war. Violence towards women is therefore the intent to demonstrate male power, maintain patriarchal structures and keep women in their “safe” spaces.
Key words: El Salvador; civil war; gender based violence; femicides; empowerment; backlash
Table of Contents Acknowledgements……….i Abstract……….……….ii 1. Introduction………1 2. Literature Review…...………4 3. Theory………9 3.1 Argument………..9 3.2 Hypothesis………..12 3.3 Operational Definitions………..12 3.4 Assumptions………..….15 4. Methodology………15 5. Background………..16 5.1 Civil War………16 5.2 Peacebuilding Process………....19
6. Gender Based Violence………21
6.1 Femicides………...22 7. Women’s Empowerment ……….26 7.1 Women in the FMLN………...29 7.2 Collaborators………..32 7.3 Activism……….………33 7.4 Economic Independence………...36 7.5 Political Participation……….38
7.6 Empowerment San Salvador vs. El Morazán……….39
8. Analysis………40
8.1 Evidence and Discussion of Empowerment………...41
8.2 Evidence and Discussion of Backlash………43
8.3 Further Discussion………..45
9. Alternative Explanation.………...48
10. Limitations………...…52
11. Conclusion………53
1 1. Introduction
Figure 1: Women protesting in El Salvador. Source: Getty images, available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/01/el-salvador-elections-putting-wo-20141288499915469.html ( 19.06.2018)
The Civil War in El Salvador has been classified as one of the most devastating events in the modern history of Latin America. Between 1908 and 1992 the war cost the lives of
approximately 75.000 Salvadorans. Additionally, one million Salvadorans were displaced either within the country or to other countries in the region such as Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and the United States (Wood 2003: 8).
The conflict was fought between the Farabundi Marti National Liberation (FMLN), a collaboration of several left-wing groups, and the military led government. Socioeconomic inequality has been identified as the main cause for the call for revolution (Byrne 1996:17). The Salvadoran Civil War (CW) is remarkable due to two main aspects. First, an
exceptionally high number of women were involved in the FMLN1. Second, the CW was resolved by peace negotiations lead by the United Nations.
1 The Farabundi Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) can be characterized as a Marxist- Leninist guerilla
2
With high hopes after the peace negotiations, 25 years after the war ended, El Salvador is still affected by high rates of violence. During the Civil War, in the 1980s, around 6,250 people per year died due to direct political violence (Bourgois 2001:9).2
In the 1990s, following the peace accords, between 8,700 and 11,000 people were killed every year by criminal violence (Decesare 1998: 23).
Additionally, the country reached in 2017 the highest homicide rate worldwide with 3,954 victims. The rate per 10.000 habitants is 60.1 (The Homicide Monitor, 2018).
Gender based violence (GBV) in particular has been rising in El Salvador. Women experience targeted violence and inequality and suffer from physical, economical and emotional abuse (ORMUSA- Observatorio de violencia). Strong patriarchal structures and a machista culture characterize Salvadoran society. The killings of women, because they are women, has been rising so fast in El Salvador and other countries of Central America that a new term was established: femicide. Femicide is the most extreme form and is additionally the most adequate measurement3 for GBV. While the country reported in 1999 the killing of 195 women, the number of female victims reached a total of 628 in 2010 (ORMUSA-
Observatorio de violencia), making El Salvador the country with the highest femicide rates in the world (Small Arms Survey 2012).
GBV and especially femicide are an urgent topic since more girls and women have been killed in the last 50 years (precisely because they were women/girls) than men have been killed in all the wars of the 20th century combined (Kristof& Wu Dunn 2010).
This development shows how critical the current situation in El Salvador is and leads to the research question formulated as follows: What explains rising gender based violence in El Salvador since the end of the Civil War?
2 Numbers on deaths connected to the CW are the only accessible and official ones that can be connected to
violence in El Salvador. Therefore, they will be used in order to illustrate the violent atmosphere in the country during the CW. Numbers on criminal violence or gender based could not be found.
3 GBV according to the UN Declaration of 1993 is: “Any act of gender- based violence that results in, or is
likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivations of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.” (United Nations 1993, Article 1). Femicides are the most adequate measurement for GBV in El Salvador because not much data exists on psychological or sexual expression of violence since these forms of violence are often not reported and therefore numbers are not official. However physical violence, and more specific femicides are better to measure since more data exists. Police and other state institutions are obliged to report murder, which makes the numbers of femicides more reliable.
3
GBV in El Salvador has not been addressed sufficiently even though the country holds the sad record of being the deadliest for women. This shows how important and urgent further research on the topic is. Only by investigation of the causes for the rise of violence can we apply proper mechanisms to prevent it. It is necessary to analyze GBV in a broader context. It is too easily connected to current Mara4 violence and is left behind.
Therefore, I will focus on one main hypotheses to discuss what could possibly explain the rise of GBV. The hypothesis connects GBV and Empowerment and implies that violence is a backlash of the men in El Salvador towards women’s development and self-determination. In order to conduct my research this paper will first offer a literature review on Women and Feminism during the CW and on GBV. Then I will elaborate my theory in order to carry out my argument, my hypothesis, operational definitions and assumptions. Afterwards the
methodology will be discussed. In a third step, I will provide a background of the Salvadoran CW and the peacebuilding processes. GBV is going to be discussed in the next section, followed by an elaboration of women’s empowerment which is going to be the groundwork for my argument. In chapter 8 the analysis is following and limitations are going to be considered in chapter 10. Additionally, an alternative explanation is going to be discussed. Last, this study will end with the conclusion section suggesting some ideas for further research and will discuss the importance of the research.
4 Maras are criminal street gangs. The Maras are account as a new phenomenon in the gang spectrum. They
distinguish themselves from other more local gangs because of their transnational roots, their international activities in the drug trade, their connection with prison gangs in the United states and their connection to the Mexican Mafia. (Valdez 2011). El Salvador’s major criminal street gangs are the Mara Salvatrucha 13 (MS- 13) and Barrio 18 (M-18). Both gangs have been founded in the Los Angeles, USA.
4 2. Literature Review
The following literature review is divided into two parts. I first review literature concerning the civil war, women and feminism; this is followed by a review of literature focused on gender based violence.
Civil War, Women and Feminism
In this part of the literature review, I will be focusing on empowerment and feminism within the context of the broader literature of the war and gender within the CW.
The CW in El Salvador lasted 12 years (1979-1992) and saw extreme forms of violence from both sides. Consequently, it had distinct effects on different groups of people in society. Women, children and men had different experiences not only during the war, but also after the war as a result of the events.
The CW in El Salvador is exceptional because of the high numbers of women that were involved in guerilla activities and because the peace negotiations carried out by the United Nations made it possible to gain more data on the war than was possible in many other cases. There is much general literature that provides an overview of the triggers and motivations for the CW and on the course of the CW such as Wood (2003) and Byrne (1996) or White (2009) that reviewed the Salvadoran History as a whole leading up to the CW.
How the war ended and how state building proceeded has been discussed for example by Chavez (2015), Stanley (2006) and Evans (2008). Stanley (2009) focuses mainly on the role of the United States in the peace and state-building process.
From a gender perspective, there is rich literature on women in the Salvadoran CW. The majority of related literature focuses on women joining the revolution and on feminism as a result of the CW. Jocelyn Viterna and Karen Kampwirth lead the field with numerous publications.
In Women and Guerilla Movements (2002) Karen Kampwirth argues that women’s
participation in the FMLN was quite significant. According to her around 40% of the FMLN members, 30% of the combatants and 20% of the military leadership were women. In her analysis, she adopts a feminist approach in order to answer central questions such as: why did women join the FMLN and what roles did women play or not play in the revolutionary politics? Two years later she published Feminism and the Legacy of Revolution. Nicaragua,
5
El Salvador, Chiapas where she focuses more on the feminist movement of women as an immediate result of the CW. Her main argument is that various factors changed across Latin America from the late 1960s onwards making it possible for women to escape constraints of their traditional lives and take over new roles such as that of a guerilla.
According to her feminism and empowerment is ultimately linked to the revolutionary movement. In El Salvador and Nicaragua feminists have been created by decades of armed and unarmed social struggle, that had initially little to do with gender topics (Kampwirth 2004; Gonzalez& Kampwirth 2001; Viterna 2013; Luciak 2001, Shayne 2004).
Consequently, feminism is an unintended result of the CW. “The clash between growing empowerment and continuing sexism in turn inspires women to launch “vibrant autonomous feminist movements” after the revolutionary period ends. “(Kampwirth 2004: 165).
Viterna (2013) focuses on similar aspects but from a micro- level perspective. She
emphasizes the well-established machista society in which women find themselves and how contradictory women’s lives tend to be. In addition, to explore women’s experiences in wartime, she considers how those experiences influence the post-war period. Since every woman had different experiences, she distinguishes between them in order to identify which women gained new economic or political opportunities because of their wartime experiences and which women in particular developed new and progressive gender ideologies
contributing to a cultural change.
The way in which women have affected the revolution and the revolution has affected women is very distinct to the experience of Salvadoran men.
In conclusion, existing literature supports the notion that feminism and empowerment in the specific case of El Salvador is an immediate and unintended result of the CW. Empowerment and sexism clashes which inspires women even more to launch feminist movements (Luciak 2001; Kampwirth 2004, 2002; Kampwirth& Gonzalez 2001; Shayne 2004; Viterna 2013).
Gender based violence
Keane (1997:9) defines violence as “any uninvited but intentional or half-intentional act of physically violating the body of a person who had previously lived in peace.” Even though this definition is narrow, it does not recognize non-physical forms of violence.
6
Hume (2009) adds that violence is often perceived as purely physical because it is
fundamentally an embodied experience. According to her the term violence does not simply refer to a plurality of behaviors; the term also implies judgement on them.
Humes contends violence is an inherently relational process, one which should be understood within the context of unequal power relations. In El Salvador, according to her, violence has been monopolized by dominant groups in the country.
Since the gendered ordering of society affects how we live and how we experience life in different levels (political, social etc.), gender should also be central to how and what we recognize as violence. Violence definitely does not affect all people in the same way (men and woman have different experiences). Even though she does not use the term gender based violence she speaks about Gendered Hierarchies of Violence. Her central argumentation is the ultimate link of the use and also the understanding of violence to gender construction. The use of violence as well as the victimization can be ultimately linked to gender. She adds to GBV the concept of hierarchies. She argues that the exercise of violence is tied up to the exercise power and the use violence is an expression of superiority of the (male) gender (Humes 2009:110- 134). In the context of El Salvador layers of violence exist that are not only minimized but also rationalized which supports over time the rise of GBV.
Walsh& Menjivar (2016) speak about multi-sided violence to explain high levels of gender violence towards women. They incorporate various forms of violence women face in their lives. Their framework incorporates political, structural, symbolic and everyday life. Their theoretical approach identifies high levels of impunity as decisive for high levels of GBV. This impunity in El Salvador is caused by the gap between the ‘law in the books’ and ‘the laws in action’. They argue that “that lack of implementation of laws addressing violence against women is more likely when the sociocultural context in which laws are created and implemented does not alter profound inequalities encompassed in multisided violence.” (Walsh& Menjivar (2016: 597).
As the roots of impunity for violence against women they identify the legacy of the CW. During they CW sexual violence was a widely-used weapon and a perverse assertion of military dominance (Walsh& Menjivar 2016). These structures exist past the end of the war and continue to shape society.
Bouta, Frerks& Bannon’s (2005) not only see GBV as a crime against the individual but more of an attack on the entire nation or community. According to their theory, civilians face
7
a GBV continuum. This suggests that violence is deeply rooted in pre-war conditions and that it is exacerbated during conflict and continues in the post-conflict phase. Therefore, violence is not only connected to wartime practices but also to pre-war conditions. GBV tends to rise after the end of civil war because of various connected reasons. First, GBV shifts from the public to the private sphere. Second, in post-war situations weapons remain readily available. Third, the trauma and suffering of male combatants is transformed into domestic violence.
Davies& True (2017) explore sexual and GBV also as a continuation of preexisting patterns of gender inequality. Their main argument is that GBV crimes occur “where there are existing social, economic, and political grievances, and gender inequality is likely to cut across those grievances” (Davies& True 2017: 69). The more these grievances and inequalities exist in society the more likely it is to experience widespread and systematic sexual and GBV.
They further discuss one of the major problems of researching and studying GBV: not-reporting. Because victims and witnesses frequently do not report events and experiences, GBV remains a hidden crime. There is still much we do not know. The reasons for not reporting according to Davies & True are numerous and concern different levels. They vary from the shame and stigma experienced by the victims, the politics of the country and danger associated with reporting, the lack of institutions robust enough to investigate the reports and to take them serious, and the common culture of impunity of the perpetrators.
Others argue that gender based violence is deeply connected to masculinity and the male order. Violence acts as a mechanism to keep women in line and punish them when they step out of the order. According to them, the male order is already so deep-rooted that it does not need any justification (Bordeu & Wacquant 2004).
Eisenbruch (2018) analyzed GBV in Cambodia and gives an example of how different violence and its roots can be perceived. Cultural forces are said to be the reasons for why a society experiences gender based violence. Aspects such as evil birthmarks and astrological incompatibilities shape the landscape of violence against women.
The recent work of prominent scholars such as Goldstein (2011), Diamond (2012) and Pinker (2011) claims that global violence is in decline. According to their work, war and violence
8
has never been as low as it is today and norms of nonviolence are well established. Pinker (2011) and Goldstein (2011) use per capita rates of violent deaths resulting from war and conflict in state systems to provide evidence for their theory. In his book The Better Angels of Our Nature, Pinker (2011) explains that this decline – or rather pacification – is due to five main developments, one of which is “feminization”. Feminization leads to fewer deaths according to his theory by: 1) the direct political empowerment of women; 2) deflation of traditions of manly honor; 3) the promotion of marriage on women’s terms; and 4) rights of women to control reproductive capacities and of girls to be born (Pinkler 2011: 684-689). In his argument, he takes a biological essentialist point of view that connects men with violence and women with peace.
True (2015) however disagrees with this observation. According to her, social science
research that suggests the decline of violence has almost completely overlooked the evidence (quantitative and qualitative) of violence against girls and women within or across states. She argues that, “the focus on decline in per capita violent deaths imports a gender bias.
Rendering invisible the harms to women and girls that typically occur outside of official “war” or that may result in significant injury but not death. […] violence against women and girls (VAWG) […] is not counted in the datasets on which declinist accounts are based” (True 2015: 560). In order to substantiate her claims, she refers to, among other things, the International Violence against Women survey and the World Health Organization. According to her contemporary surveys reveal that the majority of girls and women in every country have experienced GBV. Increases in GBV have been also registered in countries in which other forms of violence decrease. There is not only little evidence to support the claim that rates of violence against girls and women are decreasing, considering all forms of GBV as listed in the 1993 UN Declaration on Violence against women the total numbers actually exceed all deaths from war in the 20th century. In other words: more girls and women have been killed in the last 50 years (precisely because they were women/girls) than men have been killed in all the wars of the 20th century combined (Kristof& Wu Dunn 2010). These observations are supported by Gerney & Parson’s (2014) report on gun violence in the 21st century in the United States. They observed how in 2012 more women were shot and killed by their partners than all US troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.
Pietro-Carron, Thomas and Macdonald (2007) portray the development of GBV in Central America and suggest in their article “No more killings! Women respond to femicides in
9
Central America”, that femicides are the most extreme form of GBV. According to them femicides represent a backlash towards women that are empowered. Women that have been empowered by for example wage move away from traditional roles (Pietro-Carron, Thomas& Macdonald 2007: 29). These women step away from their “safe (domestic) spaces” in order to earn their own living and to become more independent (Aguilar 2005; Monarrez- Fragoso 2002). Violence and crimes against women, such as femicides, deliberately create an
atmosphere of fear and uncertainty. According to Pietro-Carron, Thomas and Macdonald (2007), this fear makes women want to stay at home (the “safe space”) and consequently gives the power to the men not only within their household but also within state institutions. In other words, violence is a form of social control. The ultimate goal is to keep women away from the public sphere, also considered as a male sphere. Aguilar (2005:5) adds that this behavior is supposed to reestablish the relationship between men and women. Women are oppressed and men attempt to keep them subordinated. Pietro-Carron, Thomas and
Macdonald (2007) quote Suyapa Martinez, member of the Honduran Women’s Organization CEM-H, in order to underline their theory of a backlash. During a meeting at the Central American Women’s Network in 2006 Martinez concluded that “femicides are a reaction against women’s empowerment: [men are saying,] ‘I’m denying you a public space, I’m denying you freedom, the right to go out and have fun, to have a personal life’” (Pietro- Carron, Thomas and Macdonald 2007: 30).
3. Theory
In this chapter I will elaborate my theory. I will start by illustrating my main argument for this research. Additionally, the hypothesis, operational definitions and assumptions are presented.
3.1 Argument
After examining the relevant literature related to feminism caused by civil wars and gender based violence such as femicides, I argue that the range of suffering and the consequences of terror in the El Salvadoran country have been in many cases oversimplified and
underestimated. Many scholars failed to recognize the rapidity of the transition from political violence to delinquent and interpersonal violence during peace time as well as the ongoing everyday structural and symbolic violence. Consequently, the ongoing everyday violence towards women that existing at the height of the Civil War was hidden behind the ongoing
10
political violence. Many observations and assumptions were been made shortly after the CW that focused on at that time more evident subjects such as the trauma and suffering of male combatants is transformed into domestic violence or continuing violence as the legacy of the CW. Additionally, the majority of scholars and literature focuses either solely on the CW and women’s participation, solely on Mara related issues or solely on empowerment in El
Salvador. The connection and affiliation between these topics was rarely made or discussed. Rising GBV is often discussed as a phenomenon due to Mara violence and hate or said to be caused by unequal power, but not in connection to or antecedent to the CW.
Therefore, I build my theory on the ground of Bouta, Frerks & Bannon’s (2005) research. I consider GBV in El Salvador as a continuum. It changes and develops but it never
disappeared. Violence also did not stop because of peace agreements. I argue that conditions that make GBV so threatening have been rooted in Salvadoran society since the CW.
Consequently, GBV is a process that did not start recently but was in the making since the CW. Bourgois’ (2004) metaphor of a pressure cooker captures best the prevailing atmosphere in El Salvador. Patriarchal structures, machismo, political violence and regression have been generating over decades’ everyday violence causing the systematic distortion of social relations.
I support Kampwirth (2002; 204), Viterna (2013) and Luciak’s (1999; 2001) theory of the empowerment of Salvadoran women caused by the CW. Women have started to become more independent (for example, economically), to develop in their roles within society and to leave their ‘safe spaces’. They have been trying to overcome deeply rooted patriarchal
structures by standing up for themselves and their rights.
I argue that gender based violence – and more specifically, femicides – in El Salvador is so frequent because women are more empowered because of the CW. As a counter reaction towards this feminist movement, men want to demonstrate their male power. The violence towards women is the desperate intent to control women, to maintain patriarchal structures and impose their superiority.
Empowered women that participate in the labor force, get into politics, that live on their own, that get active in organizations in order to fight for their rights, are perceived as a threat. They
11
not only leave their ‘safe spaces’ but also enter ‘male’ spaces. I agree with Pietro-Carron, Thomas and Macdonald (2007) and argue that men apply violence against women and ultimately kill them in order to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. The ultimate goal is to keep women out of the male sphere and reestablish women’s subordinated position. GBV is a backlash towards empowered women because men feel threatened in their position, their power, their pride and violence is the only solution they have to deal with this threat. Therefore, I argue that high levels of empowerment cause high levels of GBV and ultimately femicides in El Salvador. Additionally, areas of El Salvador in which women show to be more empowered should also show indicators of higher expression of violence (femicides).
I indicate, as shown in Figure 1, that there is a connection between rising GBV since the end of the CW and women’s empowerment cause by the CW.
Figure 2: Theory
Nonetheless, I do not claim that women are the only ones affected by violence in El Salvador. I recognize the high numbers of killings of men and I am aware of men being also affected by changes since the end of the CW. This research however does not focus on violence towards men.
Rising GBV
Empowerment
caused
12 3.2 Hypothesis
The hypothesis that is going to be addressed in this research is:
GBV is a backlash towards female empowerment.
3.3 Operational definitions
Gender Based Violence is defined by the 1993 UN Declaration as: “Any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivations of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.” (United Nations 1993, Article 1) Bouta, Frerks& Bannon (2005) definition of GBV includes additional aspects. They define GBV as: “physical, sexual and psychological violence against both men and women that occurs within the family and the community and is perpetrated or condoned by the state. In conflict situations, GBV is committed against civilians and soldiers. It is not an accidental side effect of war, but a crime against the individual and a crime against the entire
community or nation.”
In the following I will be referring to GBV as a combination of both definitions. I
acknowledge the GBV as physical, sexual and psychological violence or suffering of both men and women. I do however lean on Davies& True (2017) theory that outside of conflict and atrocity situations violence is mainly perpetrated against women and girls. Since this paper will analyze GBV after the CW I will only focus on violence against women. GBV can occur in either private or public space. Additionally, I strongly agree that it is not an
accidental side effect of war.
Empowerment can mean different things to different people, institutions and organizations. I refer mainly to Mosedale’s (2005) concept of empowerment. Even though empowerment means often different things she identifies four common characteristics. To be empowered you must be disempowered, empowerment cannot be bestowed by a third party (those who want to be empowered must claim it), people make choices about what is really important in
13
their lives and empowerment is an ongoing process rather than a product. Political and economic empowerment are often described as the main setups.
Therefore, in the case of Salvadoran women I define empowerment as becoming aware of the structures they are living in (disempowerment) and the self-determinant will to evoke
changes and awareness.
Additionally, there are aspects about empowerment that are not easily measured in general. For example, emotional aspects of empowerment are not easy to capture. A woman could possibly feel empowered but to measure the subjective perception of empowerment is not only difficult but would also be less representative.
I would also like to point out that there is no a standard of how to measure empowerment which is widely accepted. Therefore, in order to measure empowerment for my research it was necessary develop an own approach of how to measure empowerment.
I decided that in the case of Salvadoran women empowerment could be best captured by combining and analyzing three main indicators.
The first indicator is political participation. I define political engagement/participation as any activity that effects, shapes or involves the political sphere. In order to measure this indicator, I will however focus on women’s participation in the national parliament and also on the number of female mayors. This indicator has been chosen because according to the definition of empowerment women have to show self-determined will to evoke change. By becoming politically active in the national parliament women are directly involved in shaping the political atmosphere and in contributing to new legislation in the country. They do not depend on others to make the necessary changes, but rather act themselves.
The second indicator is economic independence. By economic independence I refer to being able to support yourself completely or partly by having a paid job, instead of being dependent on their father or husband. Economic independence will be measured by collecting data on women’s participation in the labor force. By earning their own money women empower themselves because they are able to make their own decisions and also design their life under their own conditions.
This indicator has also been chosen because labor force participation has a high importance in El Salvador. Having a job is perceived as the only way to overcome social and economic disparities. El Salvadorans understand that working hard and much is essential. This point of view has become to a marca de identidad nacional. (PNUD 2008: 110).
14
The third indicator that is going to be considered is activism. I refer to activism based on the classic Merriam-Webster definition. Activism is “a doctrine or practice that emphasizes direct vigorous action especially in support of or opposition to one side of a controversial issue” (Merriam-Webster 2018). In the case of the Salvadoran women, the issues they support with their activism varies from political topics, social justice etc. The ways in which women support those issues are numerous. The most typical ones however are joining, supporting or establishing women’s organizations, protesting, starting or signing petitions or campaigning. Women’s organization have been active since the CW and are a main
articulation and source of women’s development. Influential women’s organizations have been established since the CW and gave Salvadoran women their first opportunities to have a voice. Women’s organizations in El Salvador are numerous and the focus of work varies. Nevertheless, by supporting those groups women make the choice about what really is important to them, which is a main aspect of the definition of empowerment. Therefore, in order to be able to capture this indicator I will mainly focus on those women’s organizations by investigating their way of work and influence.
The three chosen aspects combined will help to capture the process women in El Salvador have been going through in order to empower. Different aspects and elements are being considered which makes the results more reliable. I do not claim that those aspects are the only ones that are important, however those are the most appropriate ones for the specific case of El Salvador and are the ones that we can measure.
Another important concept that requires a definition is Backlash. I define backlash in various steps. Fundamentally it is an immediate counter reaction to a specific situation or
circumstance. In this paper the specific situation is the empowerment of women that has been happening over the last decades in the patriarchal society of El Salvador. The adverse
reaction/counter reaction is how men respond when confronted with this development. In this paper the reaction is defined to be expressed through the use of violence. Therefore, backlash is a violent act. The ultimate outcome of such behavior ends with a femicide.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) definition of Sexual violence will be mainly consulted in this paper. This definition is being used for statistical purposes by the Organization of American State’s (OAS). Sexual violence means according to the UNODC:
15
“Unwanted sexual act, attempt to obtain a sexual act, or contact or communication with unwanted sexual attention without valid consent or with consent as a result of intimidation, force, fraud, coercion, threat, deception, use of drugs or alcohol, or abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability"(UNODC 2015: 52). Rape and sexual assault are included.
However, sexual exploitation such prostitution offences are not included.
3.4 Assumptions
Related to my theory I made four crucial assumptions.
1. I assume there is a connection between GBV and the CW in El Salvador. 2. There is a connection between empowerment and GBV.
3. Violence is mainly imposed by men. I will not consider possible acts of violence of women.
4. GBV is expressed in different forms such as structural violence, symbolic violence and everyday violence. The most atrocious expression of GBV however are
femicides.
4. Methodology
This chapter elaborates on the methods that were used to appropriately test my hypothesis and finally address the research question:
What explains rising gender based violence in El Salvador since the end of the Civil War? In order to test my hypothesis, I performed an in-depth case study of GBV in El Salvador. I focused on variations in GBV over time, analyzing the circumstances surrounding rising GBV since the start of the CW in 1961 until 2017. The variation therefore is during the CW and after the CW. I will additionally consider the variation of space by analyzing
empowerment and GBV in different departments of El Salvador. Urban and rural areas are therefore going to be considered.
In order to measure my dependent variable (GBV as indicated by femicides), I will collect quantitative data on GBV in El Salvador. Since GBV often remains a silent and hidden crime, I choose to mainly focus on femicides as an indicator for GBV, since it is the best measurable
16
indicator. Other forms of violence are often not reported therefore numbers are not official. Since the police and other institutions are obliged to report murder it makes the numbers of femicides more reliable. The collection of empirical evidence through textual analysis will support the findings.
To test my hypothesis, I will collect quantitative and qualitative data on women’s
empowerment considering the three chosen indicators to analyze if there is a rise over time. Quantitative data on women’s participation in the labor force and participation in the national parliament is going to be collected as possible indicators of empowerment. In a second step, qualitative data will help to analyze if a backlash might have caused rising GBV or not. I gathered data from several reports, organizations, agencies and investigations of other scholars that will describe in detail the situation in order to make a connection to empowerment and violence.
5. Background
“The road to the Civil War in El Salvador is chronology of desperation. It explains the problems of the present and the past, and it has given outsiders a manual on both how not and how to solve internal disputes.” (White 2009: 91)
5.1 The Civil War
The Civil War in El Salvador can be categorized as one of the most devastating conflicts of the modern history of Latin America. From 1980 to 1992 the war cost approximately the lives of 75,000 Salvadorans and nearly 1 million were displaced either within El Salvador or to neighboring countries such as Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica or the United States of America (El Salvador had approximately five million habitants). The majority of the victims were villagers, farmers and their families and the lower urban class (Wood 2003). According to Elisabeth Jean Wood (2003) about one in 56 Salvadorans lost their lives as a result of the conflict.
The two primary opponents in the conflict were the military-led government of El Salvador and the guerilla group known as Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN). The
17
FMLN can be characterized as a Marxist- Leninist guerilla group which was a coalition of several leftist groups. Both opposing factions received external support. While the FMLN was supported by Nicaragua, Cuba and indirectly by the soviet government (there is disagreement to what extent the soviet government really supported the FMLN), the Salvadoran Government received support mainly from the United States.
The CW lasted more than 12 years and was marked by distinct and extreme forms of violence from both parties. These include but are not limited to the deliberate oppression of civilians by authorizing death squads, the recruitment of child soldiers and numerous other forms of human right violations. According to the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) 85% of the acts of violence can be attributed to state agents (Salvadoran armed forces, Salvadoran security forces, Civil defense units and Death Squads) and about 5% to the FMLN. Additionally, the Truth Commission of the USIP observed that violent acts took place predominantly in rural areas (USIP 1992).
The roots of the crisis that led to the CW lay in a combination of (socio) economic, political and strategic factors (Byrne 1996:17). “An elitist economic structure and the expansion of an export-crop economy dramatically worsened the conditions of life for the peasantry and forced the majority of the population into an untenable and deteriorating economic situation by the 1970s. The country’s political order excluded the majority from participation and proved incapable of instituting reforms that might have brought meaningful change through democratic means.” (Byrne 1996:17). About 60% of the cultivated land in El Salvador was owned by 20% of the population, which lead to the top 8% of the country earning more than 50% of the national income leaving the rest earning less than 10 dollars per month (Thomson 1986: 2).
As a result of the prevailing situation a transformation of awareness of many peasants occurred, catholic activists began to influence society and revolutionary groups began to form. Augustin Farabundo Marti, after whom the FMLN named itself, led a peasant rebellion against the government in 1932. This rebellion was brutally suppressed. In “La Matanza” (The Slaughter) the military led government killed about thirty thousand people fighting for their rights and survival (Cruden& Chalk 2013:18). During the following thirty years the voices for revolution remained repressed until 1961 when a military coup put a right- wing government in charge.
18
The 15th of October 1979 was one of the most defining moments in the history of the country, as a coalition of civilian leaders and military officers overthrew General Carlos Humberto Romero’s rightist government. The coalition involved in the coup was formed by many actors with just as many different and more importantly contradictory motives and interests (Byrne 1996: 53). As a result of the coup the Salvadoran military was significantly weakened and their remaining support was divided into two factions, a progressive and a conservative group.
Only three months after the coup, civilian leaders of the JRG abandoned their objectives and positions after receiving death threats from right-wing members. In the beginning of 1980 it became apparent how severe those death threats were. An accusation of the former
Salvadoran National Guard officer and death-squad commander, Roberto D’Aubuisson, led to the assassination of a Christian Democratic Party leader in his home. He was accused of being a communist which sufficed to order his death.
Shortly after, Archbishop Oscar A. Romero, an important religious leader and peace advocate in El Salvador who had sent an open letter to U.S. President Jimmy Carter pleading to
suspend the military aid to the Salvadoran regime, was assassinated. Roberto D’Aubuisson was arrested in May 1980 alongside with his followers in connection with the Archbishop’s murder and for planning a coup against the JRG (Cruden & Chalk 2013: 19). The same year the situation in the country continued to deteriorate when the government tortured and killed hundreds of peasants on the 14th and 15th of May near the Sumpul River (north-western El Salvador). This event marks the beginning of the Civil War.
In October of 1980 the guerilla organization FMLN was formed from the FPL (Popular Forces of Liberation-Farabundo Marti), RN (Resistencia Nacional), ERP (People’s Revolutionary Army) and CRTC (Central American Revolutionary Workers Party).
After a year of numerous killings and attacks on the peasants of El Salvador in December 1981 the army killed a whole village (Massacre de el Mozote) of about one thousand people leaving only three survivors behind. This massacre is considered the most atrocious of the conflict. In the following years, the wave of killings continued. Many of the targets of the death squads were journalists, educators, labor leaders, members of the clergy, members of the Human Rights Commission, the U.S. military adviser and members of the US Marines. In
19
December1983 the United Nations reported that a total of 20 percent of the Salvadoran population was either homeless or had fled the country. The same month U.S. vice president George H.W. Bush visited San Salvador and claimed that the killings of the death squads must terminate because they threatened the survival and vitality of the government. After his visit for a short amount of time the killings declined but the effect did not hold for long-term. In a national election in May 1984 Jose Napoleon Duarte (elected in 1980 as El Salvador’s first civilian president in forty-nine years) defeats D’Aubuisson in a run-off for the
presidency. The situation for the majority of the population remained precarious due to the high percentage of homelessness and the collapsed economy.
By the end of 1989 the FMLN was able to launch its largest offensive of the war by attacking military centers throughout the country. The government on the other side responded by bombing cities and by killing arbitrarily civilians. The offensive lasted about two months and claimed approximately 2000 lives on both sides. Nevertheless, the FMLN was considered as the winning faction of the offensive since they gained wide public support (Cruden& Chalk 2013: 22). With no end of the war in sight the public pressure and international voices to resolve the conflict became more and more important to both sides.
5.2 Peacebuilding
“From the mid through the late 1980s the momentum for peace within Central America had grown.” (Byrne 1996: 169)
The Arias Plan, named after Oscar Sanchez Arias the Costa Rican President laid the
foundation for negotiations to end the war and to focus on bringing peace to Central America. His plan included guaranteeing free elections and the protection of human rights. Due to Oscar Arias, the Esquipulas talks in Guatemala opened up the peace process by bringing the rebels and the Duarte government to the negotiation table and by mobilizing peace making staples such as the UN troops (White 2009:107).
The peace negotiations in El Salvador were influenced by events in Nicaragua, the Soviet Union and the United States. The Sandinistas in Nicaragua had lost their power and
consequently the FMLN lost their biggest supporter. With the onset of the post-Cold War era, the guerillas became aware of the changing state of affairs and the need to reconsider possible
20
new approaches and maneuvers (Luciak 2001: 36). Additionally, with elections in the United States George H.W. Bush became the new president (1989-1993). His approach to the peace negotiations differed perceptibly from the Reagan administration as he was more disposed to include the guerillas in the peace talks. Nevertheless, the peace talks did not make much progress in the following years under the presidency of Napoleon Duarte.
For its part, the FMLN took advantage of the momentum with an offensive against the Salvadoran government in November 1989, one which spread quickly across the country and made it all the way to the capital. The FMLN had high hopes that people would start
supporting it with a mass uprising. Even though their expectations for the offensive fell short, it had far reaching consequences.
Until that moment the United States had invested over four billion dollars of aid into the El Salvadoran conflict in order to weaken the FMLN guerilla organization. However, the November offensive was a clear sign that the capacities of the organization were not decreased, which made it even more necessary to invest in negotiations. The FMLN in turn had to consequently reconsider their strategy with the same result as the government of the United States. The leadership was forced to reflect upon other possibilities to win the war since it became apparent that it could not be won militarily from either of the opposing sides (White 2009:107).
By the beginning of 1990 – soon after the FMLN’s offensive – the United Nations took over and guided the peace negotiations. With their involvement, rapid progress was made. The negotiations in September 1991 in New York were a breakthrough and set the basis for the final peace accords. On the 16th of January 1992, the peace negotiations resulted in the Chapultepec Peace Agreement that officially ended the Civil War in El Salvador.
On one side the government committed for example to reduce its military power and accept the FMLN as new security forces (up to 20 percent). On the other side the FMLN agreed to completely demobilize their military structures. This demobilization was planned to be carried out in five stages starting in June 1992 and finally ending in December of the same year (Luciak 2001:37). In addition to military issues the agreement included electoral and judicial reforms and the creation of a new state institution for the protection of human rights (PDDH) (Chavez 2015: 1793).
21
Following the Peace Building Process, the FMLN transformed into a legal political party which still exists. In spite of some internal conflicts the party had experienced in the
following years it developed into one of the major political parties in El Salvador. The party managed to steadily improve their electoral results, governing since 1994 in hundreds of municipalities (including San Salvador). In 2009 the FMLN reached the peak of their power winning the presidential election with the former Journalist Mauricio Funes (Chavez 2015: 1796).
Chavez (2015) assesses the peace accords critically. He summarizes that “the 1992 peace accords brought the civil war to a definitive end, but they were less effective in creating the basis for a more peaceful and just society in El Salvador” (Chavez 2015: 1797).
6. Gender based violence
“Violence appears to be a natural yet dynamic manifestation of how individuals interrelate and organize themselves in society.” (Duenas& Rueda 2011:2)
My theoretical framework focuses on GBV in El Salvador. The ideas that are going to elaborated in the following are the structural basis for my argument. Therefore, it should be viewed as being the starting point for the research study itself.
Even though wars and violence are inseparable there is however a widely-acknowledged argument that scholars and policy analysts support that violence against civilians is even more radical, and as a result worthier of intervention, than violence exclusively between two or more violent opponents (Kalyvas 2006). Violence against women and children is even more atrocious. According to Goldstein (2001) men comprise the overwhelming majority of those perpetrating violence, whereas women are the majority of adults that are left behind, living in communities within the areas of conflict. By staying behind in the areas of war women and children are even more vulnerable to the course of conflict. The immediate aftermath of this systematic phenomenon in El Salvador can be demonstrated with the attacks on May 19th at the Sumpul River where hundreds were killed and in December of the
22
majority of the victims were female and children since they were the individuals who were left behind. Goldstein’s argument therefore fits in the case of the civil war of El Salvador.
As I previously acknowledged, GBV represents physical, sexual and psychological violence or suffering of both men and women. However, this research will exclusively focus on GBV towards women. GBV can occur in either the private or public realm. Additionally, I strongly agree that it is not an accidental side effect of war. Women in El Salvador are affected by physical as well as by sexual and psychological violence.
In the following I will focus on femicides in El Salvador as a specific form of GBV since the end of the civil war.
6.1 Femicides
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2012) Central America has become one of the most violent regions in the world and shows the highest rates of homicide outside of war. The three countries of the so called “Northern-Triangle”, Guatemala,
Honduras and El Salvador have become the most dangerous ones and are especially
dangerous for women. Women experience targeted violence and inequality and suffer from physical, economical and emotional abuse. This precarious situation in Central America led to the need for a specific term describing the brutality towards women: Femicide.
Femicide describes the killing of a girl or women by a man on account of their gender. The first cases of what has become now known as femicide in the Central America and Mexico occurred in 1993 in Ciudad Juarez, which is a city at the border to the United States. Multiple reports appeared in the media about findings of raped and dead female bodies outside of the city. Gender based violence (GBV) reached extreme forms and numbers and not only led to the need for a specific terminology. The newly gained attention of GBV conveyed the need for more research and surveillance. In El Salvador, primarily women’s organizations started collecting records and data on femicides in the 1990s and published their findings in order to raise attention about the precarious reality of women.
About 66,000 girls and women worldwide are killed every year in the period of 2004 till 2009. In the global context femicides make up about 17 percent or almost one- fifth of all homicides.
23
According to the Small Arms Survey (2012) more than half of the 25 countries with the highest femicide rates are in the Americas (4 in the Caribbean, 4 in Central America and 6 in South America). Overall regions or countries with high rates of lethal violence corresponds with high rates of femicides. This proves right in El Salvador. The country now has the highest rate of homicide and also the highest femicide rate with an average of 12.0 victims per 100,000. In countries marked by lethal violence women are more frequently attacked in public spheres including attacks carried out by organized criminal gangs and/or groups. Whereas in the majority of perpetrators had previously an intimate relationship with the victim, previous partnership or family ties, the opposite aftermath is visible counties with high femicides rate such as El Salvador and also for example Colombia. Only three percent of the crimes were committed by current or former intimate partners. The majority of victims in all 25 countries did report a previous experience of violence or abuse by the perpetrator. Another important aspect of femicides is the role of firearms in the surroundings. Firearms play a crucial part in the frequency of lethal violence. As reported by the Small Arms Survey, many have reported being threatened with firearms before they became victims of femicides. Additionally, an estimated 60 percent of all homicides have been committed with firearms. Therefore, a clear connection between the existence of firearms in the households and femicides can be assumed (Small Arms Survey 2012).
In El Salvador 78% of the victims in the first trimester of 2018 (114 in total) were killed with firearms. With 11.4% the second most common weapon are the armas blancas such as knives. Comparing the number of victims in the first trimester of the years 2016-2018 there is a rise of around 20% between 2017 and 2018. Whether the statistics for 2018 will be higher than 2017 remains to be seen.
Since the focus on femicides started in the 1990s not much data exists on this specific form of GBV during the Civil War. Naturally, society was too occupied with general survival to be focusing on GBV.
However, there was a clear rise in femicides shortly after the war ended. The first ‘official’ numbers that can be found are from 1999 and they indicate 195 and in 2000 about 193 victims. These numbers should, however, be treated with caution because of the high likelihood of under- or non-reporting. Nevertheless, they represent the most accurate data available and capture the urgency of the topic.
24
Table 1: Number of femicides in El Salvador 1990-2017 (Data from ORMUSA- Observatorio de violencia)
Rates for gender based killings continued to rise every year up until 2006 with a peak of 437 victims. The following two years the violence shortly declined but only to reach even higher extremes.
In 2011 the highest femicide rate in El Salvador was recorded with 628 women and girls being victims of targeted violence (ORMUSA- Observatorio de violencia). The numbers halved between 2012 and 2014 followed by yet another extreme rise between 2015 and 2017.
The rate of femicides varies in the different departments of El Salvador. San Salvador, especially the capital of El Salvador also named San Salvador, has been since the recording of femicides the most dangerous for women. As we can see in Table 2 the other dangerous departments are La Libertad, Santa Ana and San Miguel. Chalatenango, Cabañas, Morazán and San Vicente proved to be less dangerous departments with less killings in between 2005 and 2018.5
5 The numbers used in Table 2 are from ORMUSA. It should be noted, that those numbers are not complete.
Only the femicides that have been specifically registered in the specific department have been used. Also, the documentation includes gaps. In some year’s the observatory did not record the femicides per department along the whole year but only for a certain amount of time. The timeframe of recording however was equal for all the departments. 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
FEMICIDES IN EL SALVADOR 1999-2017
25 Place Recorded Femicides Department 1. 2,047 San Salvador 2. 969 La Libertad 3. 481 Santa Ana 4. 386 San Miguel … … … 11. 106 San Vicente 12. 104 Morazán 13. 90 Cabañas 14. 89 Chalatenango
Table 2: Femicides per department 2005-2018. Own Chart. Source of Data: Observatorio ORMUSA.
What is missing in most of the data so far is knowledge about motives that led to the crime. In 2006 in about 300 of the 437 cases insights about possible motives are completely
unknown. This uncertainty leads to two main problems. First, it is an indicator for insufficient effort of the institutions in charge (Fiscalia General de la Republica and Policia Nacional) to investigate the case entirely and extensively. Second, without knowing the roots of causes for violence towards women it is more difficult to find proper preventive tools. The lack of effort underlines the deep problem of gender based violence within the context of El Salvador and the secondary importance of women in society.
Another crucial aspect is: Who are the killers? Because of the lack of investigation of the institutions in charge there is not much known about the perpetrators either. There is also disagreement in reports. While the small arms survey reports that Salvadoran women did not previously have a relationship to the perpetrator the oberservatorio de violencia of ORMUSA makes a different observation. According to them, women are most likely to be assaulted by men they know (ORMUSA- Observatorio de Violencia). In 2013, more information about the perpetrator could only be gathered in about 14 out of 215 cases, with each of them indicating a close relationship between the victims and the killer. Four women were killed by their husband or their partner, two by their boyfriend, four by their ex-partner, one by their son, one by their stepfather and two by their father in law.
26
In 2015, only about nine percent of all cases of femicides were prosecuted and brought to court, which underlines the lack of support for women suffering from gender based violence (Menjivar& Walsh 2016: 592).
7. Women’s Empowerment
“And in many ways, it will be Salvadoran women who will receive the most benefit from the revolution: at present, they are the most exploited group and their need the most ignored. Salvadoran women need both financial aid and political support- international solidarity is vital.” (Thomson 1986:9)
The following section focuses specifically on the previously defined term of empowerment. Since empowerment is a process rather than a final product, I capture the development as precisely as possible by starting with basics about traditional family structures in El Salvador. Only by understanding the basis can we compare the development of women over time and space. In the analysis section I will then discuss the observations.
In Latin America families and society are usually male-dominated. The so-called machismo6 is omnipresent in all areas of life. Nadia Youssef captured the essence of the Latin American order fitting. She says: “Strong familism, patriarchalism, cultural tradition and male
supremacy, and the sanction of a religion […] which reinforces the subsidiary position of women in the social structure’ characterizes the Latin American social order.” (Yousseff 1972: 143).
Machismo is not only a form of expression of male domination and supremacy but
additionally as Gioconda Belli7 explains, it divides women into two categories. On the one hand women are sexual beings that need to be conquered and possessed. And on the other hand, women are seen as mothers, as authority figures that embody everything that is virtuous, gracious and worthy of praise in female nature. The mother is in Latin American culture very powerful (Belli: 2016).
6 Machismo is the exaggerated form of masculinity.
27
The women of El Salvador predominantly live in simple or poor conditions and are mainly campesinas (peasants) (Thomson 1986: 1). Rural villages in El Salvador normally were organized according to gender norms. Large families are characteristic of Salvadoran society. While men normally worked between farming their own small pieces of land and/or on the land of large owners trying to provide for the family, women and young girls were taught how to be a good women and housewives (Viterna 2013:27). A good woman and or housewife was mainly defined by being obedient, hard-working and decent.
Surprisingly, even though family life and religion are the main factors in society and
motherhood the ultimate goal for a woman the marriage rates in El Salvador were very low in the 1970s and 1980s. Women often live in contradiction with the moral code, since they often have children from different partners without being married. The fathers on the other side abandon in large numbers their partners and leave the women alone with the responsibility of taking care of the children (Thomson 1986: 30-32).
As an immediate result of the CW the traditional family life in El Salvador was disrupted. Demographics changed dramatically, particularly in rural areas where villages came to be inhabited almost solely by women, children and the elderly. This demographic change contributed greatly to a shift in gender roles that caused approximately 70% of Salvadoran households/families to be led by women. In urban areas, by 1973 around 40% of the households were run by women which means that they were not only the head of the household but also the family’s essential source of income (Neld 2014: 144).
28
Table 3: Characteristics of Women in El Salvador between 15 and 49 years (Source: FESAL 2008)
The difference between women living in urban and rural areas is still very apparent. In 2008 15.4% of women in rural areas had no education. In urban areas, it was only 5.6%. There is also a difference in the level of education they reach. Whereas almost half of the women in urban areas attend education systems for 10 years or longer only 15.2% of the women in rural area are able to. Another significant difference between the area is the number of children. In rural areas women have in average 2.1 children and in urban areas the average is 1.6 in 2008. Since 1980 however the number of children has been sinking for both groups.
With the 1950 Constitution women were granted for the first time the right to vote and equal citizenship (Thomson 1986:83). They did not obtain the right to stand for elections until 1961.
El Salvador today has the highest femicide rate in the world with a rate of 12 per 100,000 people (Small Arms Survey 2016). Moreover, the country experiences high levels of sexual
29
and intra-familial violence (Zulver 2016). In 2008 12% of women in El Salvador declared that they had been forced into having sexual relations against their will. (OAS: 27)
The strict abortion laws in El Salvador contribute additionally to a hostile environment for women. While other countries began to move towards a liberation of restrictive laws concerning abortion, in 1998 El Salvador’s government decided to take the opposite approach. Until then abortion was allowed under certain circumstances, such as when the women’s life was in danger, when the pregnancy was a result of rape or when the fetus showed severe health problems (Amnesty International 2015). After the enactment of new laws, however, abortion was considered a criminal act with severe repercussions for the women even in the case of tubal pregnancies. If the women plead guilty they are sentenced to jail for up to six years. In case they are being prosecuted for murder (for aborting the child) they can face up to 40 years in jail. (Engelhardt 2017; Amnesty International 2015). Hospitals and other health institutions in El Salvador are obliged to report any possible case
immediately to the police. This hostile environment led on occasion to the prosecution and imprisonment of women who miscarried without any forced intervention or gave birth to a stillborn child (Engelhardt 2017).
Nevertheless, Women in El Salvador experienced a development in gender roles starting as an immediate result of the civil war. As we are going to explore in this thesis, women did always fill in other roles and became more independent as soon as time/situations asked them to. Since the start of the revolutionary period in the 1930s Salvadoran women not only formed committees to collect aid for the Farabundo Marti rebellion, but also fought in the first line in Nicaragua with the Augusto Sandino Liberation army (Thomson 1986: 7). This development laid the foundation for women’s empowerment.
7.1 Women in the FMLN
One of the most significant women-related developments in El Salvador was their
participation in the FMLN. According to various sources and collected data, 40 percent of FMLN members, 30 percent of its combatants and 20 percent of its military leaders were women (Kampwirth 2002:2). Such high percentages are surprising since in conflict and gender studies many scholars support the widespread view that war and violence is a
30
analyzed in his book War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War system and Vice Versa different aspects about why and how women and men differ from each other with regards to violence and war and why indeed men tend to apply more extreme forms of violence.
Women on the other hand are the nurturing and innocent, but also helpless part of society. As possible reasons for this theory he explores different perspectives such as biological, socio-political and cultural perspectives (Goldstein 2001:251).
For other scholars, (e.g. Wood & Thomas (2016), Thomas & Bond (2015), Kampwirth (2002) et al.) however, those high numbers in the FMLN are not that unpredictable. According to their studies about women’s participation in violent political organizations women are more likely to participate in organizations with leftist ideologies and positive gender ideology. Positive gender ideology increases the probability of women in combatant roles by 129% (Thomas & Bond 2015: 498).
Due to high mortality levels in the early periods of the war the FMLN was obligated to rethink their strategy and recruitment. The personnel shortage could not solely be fulfilled by recruiting men and increasing logistical tasks called for the opening up of the structures of the organization towards women. Another reason for the FMLN to recruit women, was to make the camps more like home (Viterna 2013: 63). Having women in the camps was like bringing back of piece of society and normal family structures. Women are said to bring human
necessities such as love and affection which were crucial to sustain the morale of the guerillas and to make the situation more tolerable (Viterna 2013: 63).
The reasons why women participate in armed rebellions are typically not different from those of their male counterparts. In the specific case of the FMLN women, they participated in the hope to end the dictatorship, to end the exploitation of the poor and to create an honorable country for their children and families (Kampwirth 2002: 7). It was also a way for them to gain new skills, new abilities and the feeling of being able to make a difference. Even though a positive gender ideology is important for women’s participation, feminist or gender topics are not a decisive motivation. Karen Kampwirth (2002) interviewed more than 200 women in the leftist organizations in Nicaragua (FSLN: Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional) and El Salvador and only one of all the women declared she joined the revolution because of her desire for more gender justice (Kampwirth 2002: 6). Nevertheless, living amongst the guerillas was for many the closest experience to gender equality (Kampwirth 2004: 14).
