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Say No UniTE to end violence against women is a global call for action that began in November 2009. Its main purpose is to raise awareness of the tremendous violence against women, for example femicidio, in Guatemala. Its goal is overall education reaching across social classes and various societal institutions in hopes to eliminate violence against women and girls.

The article discusses how the Guatemalan government and different UN offices are launching a regional initiative called: "UNiTE to End Violence against Women." The initiative is a global action to end violence against women and girls in Guatemala. According to the article, violence against women has far-reaching consequences, harming families and communities, along with undermining economic growth.

This article focus's on Guatemala's need for the vote to end violence against women. Around 70% of women and girls are physically or sexually abused by men in their life time. This article highlights the importance of this issue and its prevalence in Guatemala.

Although the previously bookmarked article seeks to establish an outline of the human or women rights violations that occur within Guatemala, here, author Karim Velasco, sheds light upon newly distinguished laws and explains despite their hopeful goals, why they have ceased to work effectively. She argues that because of the "lack of effective investigation and prevention strategies of the Guatemalan authorities", women continue to be raped, tortured, and murdered at an increasing rate. Because of pressures from the European Parliament to abide by human rights laws, "on April 9, 2008, Guatemalan Congressed passed the 'Law Against Femicide and other Forms of Violence against Women Act' to severely punish any kind of gender-based violence..." However, because the violence stems from the power inequality between men and women in the first place, there is little belief or evidence that this Act will be implemented or strongly enforced by the men in power who seek to represent masculinity or display a constant idea of machismo.

The military's efforts to exercise power through terrorizing during the civil war in Guatemala (1960-1966), resurfaces today through the acts of gender-based violence, committed by gangs in Guatemala. This exemplifies how war and violence shapes society and how it has influenced gender equality. There is as much terror and torturing of women as there was during the war. However, now this reality is being reinforced by members of society-since such crimes go unnoticed/unpunished-, normalizing terror and fear in Guatemala.

This article talks about violence against women in Guatemala and how it is not only happening more these days, but the crimes are also seeming to get worse. It also talks about the difference between the murders of both men and women and possible reasons for why they were caused. Recently however, there have been marches in the streets and increased awareness domestically and internationally of the problems facing the country regarding violence.

The article entitled "Guatemala's 'Femicide' Crisis" seeks to explain the implications of the unnecessary and brutal mass killings occurring amongst women in Guatemala mostly by male gangs. Because the killings have exceeded such an unusual extent, it has been deemed a "Femicide", otherwise known as a "Gendercide" or a genocide directed mainly against females. The ages of girls or women discussed in this article being raped, beaten, and murdered range from three year old toddlers to middle aged women. Not only do gangs of men perform these acts for no reason other to establish masculinity within their affinity groups. Moreover, the law enforcement agencies are so corrupt that it was said, "justice imposed by the state is non-existent" and "only two per cent of crimes against women are solved." This article seeks to establish the problem that is still going on even after the forty-year civil war while other chosen articles are determined to look for solutions.

To date, nearly 30 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean region have enacted laws against domestic violence or have characterized the violence as a crime. Despite these laws, many women in Latin America and the Caribbean continue to be failed by the legal system. (October 2001)

This is an article discussing the lack of protection for women against acts of domestic violence in Latin America. The article addresses the difficulty for women to report these crimes due to lack of rights and enforcement of the laws.

A radical newsletter in the struggle for peace and justice. Due to religious influences and beliefs, women do not have the rights to their bodies by law, so they seek alternative methods to have abortions, with a large number resulting in death. Similar to our discussion of sexual education in schools, the 'reality' does not match up with what is taught in schools (especially Catholic ones). Instead of being proactive and preventative, abstinence is taught. iolence against women is coming to the forefront as a major concern in Latin America. Termed "femicide," violence against women by men because they are women is a poor result of the hierarchy of the cultural society in Latin America. Machismo and masculinity influence men to feel that they must act this way from a young way in order to exert their power and strength, but it is unacceptable. This article also discusses women's movements and their fight for equal rights as well as rights to maternity leave and other aspects that women who work must take into account.

In an effort to tie the three bookmarked articles together, this piece also discusses relevant material to Nelson's "Reckoning" alongside the movie, "When the Mountains Tremble". This article too discuses the idea and reality of Femicide or the genocide against women in Guatemala that still occurs to date. While the other readings set up an outline of what acts occur against women and the lack of influence police powers have, this article flashes numbers at the reader as a shock value to paint a picture of the immense number of women who have experienced brutality. While the other articles have mentioned the extent to which corruption influences the lack of punishment, this author seeks punishment in a different way. While doing research in Guatemala, he took victims who have been harmed themselves or have lost close ones to the war to the mountains to confront the militia men as a form of satisfaction or justice since the impunity rate is 97% in Guatemala. He explained that the gratitude of victims explaining their feelings to murderers would be far more reaching than formal punishment from the criminal justice system ever could be.

This article details the growing trend of abused and battered women from Guatemala to seek asylum in the United States. In Guatemala, the law refuses to aid the women or protect them, which has led to enormously high rates of spousal killings. Unfortunately, violence against women in Guatelmala is not considered a crime

Women's rights activist groups in Chile are urging presidential candidates to support women's rights. They want to further the progress they made during the the current government, and are urging all women to vote and take a stand during the presidential elections in December. Some of their prominent issues include the decriminalization of abortion, availability of emergency contraception, and legislature to prevent and rid Chile of violence against women and gender-related murders of women.

This is a radio show discussing the violence against women as a result of the machismo culture. It also discusses a group of men from Nicaragua that are participating in a program to "unlearn" the aspects of being macho.