Group items tagged

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.

The region including Latin America and the Caribbean is the area with the most homophobic crimes committed in recent years. Countries including Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and Colombia have had an unfortunate recent history of homophobic crimes. This article, from ipsnews.net., describes how IDAHO (the International Day Against Homophobia Committee) is asking for an international day against homophobia. They chose May 17th as the day of recognition, because on May 17, 1990, homosexuality was removed from the World Health Organization's list of mental disorders. In the past few years, many Latin American countries have developed slogans and media campaigns against homophobia and the transmission of HIV/AIDS. Many activist groups in Latin America (and worldwide) are vying for political action and equal rights laws.

Although abortion is illegal in Brazil, it is allowed for medical purposes such as the mother's health and in cases of rape. Yet, when a nine year old was raped and impregnated with twins by her step-father, the public was outraged because of the conflicting ideals with the Catholic Church and abortion. The Church upholds the view that any "innocent, unborn" life taken is the act of extreme sin that should be shunned upon.

The number of escapes at the Zacatecas prison in Mexico has increased over the past few years to an astronomical number thanks to the escape plans of Zetas, a paramilitary group. By paying off the prison guards, the inmates have been able to smuggle everything from cell phones and designer clothes to prostitutes in and bribe their way to larger cell blocks. The close knit relationship the drug cartel have formed with prison guards and federal officers begs the question: who in Mexico is actually fulfilling their duty to serve the public and protect?

Domingo Metro Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic is creating a Metro system that has all the Dominicans talking. So far, there aren't any trains; rails; or turnstiles in place it is just a hole in the ground. They have a construction deadline of early next year. The only other subways system in the Caribbean is in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Santo Domingo subway will have up to nine miles of tracks. This subways system would be a great way to un-clog the streets from cars, busses and horse carts as well as give them a closer connection to New York (their inspiration).

Uruguay passed a trailblazing law on September 9th of this year, allowing homosexual couples to adopt children. Uruguay is a predominately catholic country, and same-sex adoption goes directly against some principles of catholicism. Uruguay was also the first Latin American country to allow divorce, and recently allowed homosexual individuals into military schools, as noted in the article.

In most of Latin America, abortions are a crime, but this does not decrease the amount of abortions that are performed. Criminalizing abortion has become increasingly dangerous, especially in an area where there is little sex education and women are kept from using contraception. Up to 5,000 women die each year and thousands are hospitalized.

In most of the region of Latin America abortions are a crime, but criminalizing abortion doesn't decrease abortion rates and only endangers the lives of women. The abortion rate is far higher than in Western Europe or the United States. In Columbia, abortions are illegal even if a woman's life is in jeopardy. There is little sex education and social taboos keep unmarried women from exploring the options of contraception. Up to 5,000 women die each year from abortions in Latin America, and thousands more are hospitalized. In Cuba, however, abortion is legal on request. Latin Americans are looking at abortion as an issue of maternal mortality.

President Lula of Brazil hopes to "pass a 'homophobia law' that would make it a crime to criticize homosexual behavior." Most homophobic criticism stems from religious conservative groups. This is a primary goal of Lula's as an increasing number of murders have begun to result from hatred and prejudice against homosexuals over the past years.

Latin American leaders are trying to prevent HIV in Latin America and the Carribean through sexual education and health promotion programs in schools. Childhood and adolescent years are the most important years of developing, therefore it is imperative to provide education on sexuality. The Costa Rican Government signed an agreement allowing leaders to educate 15-25 year olds on HIV and how to use a condom.

Latin America Ministers pledged to provide broad sex education in schools. Having sexual education can give the children an accurate idea of how bad the issue of HIV/AIDS is, and how they could prevent it. The education will cover a broad range of issues such as how HIV is transmitted and how to use a condom. The governments in Latin America and Caribbean are showing huge leadership in this field to provide the children and adolescents will information that will help this growing epidemic.

This article discusses the notion of poverty and violence within the Guatemalan society. Currently, there are at least 900,000 residents, all above the age of 60 who are living on the dirty, impoverished streets of Guatemalan cities. Although the government has proposed solutions to the overwhelming amount of poverty and economic turmoil, there has been little progress in recent years.

This site reports a recent study of the living standards for Guatemalans. In the past few years, the rates of poverty, crime, and malnutrition have skyrocketed alarmingly. The hardest hit are the elderly and the children. In order to combat this, Guatemala is instituting benefit programs to give welfare to the elderly.

This is a group that came to Wheaton last year to talk about human rights (and violations of those rights) in El Salvador and to promote fair trade and free elections. The website has information about the current political and economic situation in El Salvador and what we can do to help improve it.

Reminders of Peru's recent violence have occurred in recent months in a series of attacks against the Peruvian government by a group using the name Sendero Luminoso or "Shining Path," the Maoist guerrilla group responsible for a large amount of bloodshed in the 1980's. This article details the recent attacks along with providing a brief history of the violence involving Shining Path in previous years.

Bryan Derballa is from my hometown, and has done a great deal of excellent photojournalism work-recently traveling to Venezuela during the referendum vote Hugo Chávez (the current controversial president of Venezuela) put forth to eliminate the law limiting the amount of years he could run for re-election and remain in office. I frequent his blog, featuring Derballa's work along with other artists from North Carolina, California, and New York. The photos document both the support and protest towards Chávez during the referendum vote last February.

This article is from 2008, one year after Mexico City legalized abortions. It talks about the continuing difficulties for poor women to receive safe abortions, even though they had been legalized. Women complained about long lines at understaffed public clinics, hostile treatment from hospital workers who opposed abortion, and unfair bureaucratic hurdles which made it difficult or impossible for them to get the procedure done. At the time this article was written, the abortion law was being challenged in the Supreme Court by the conservative government.

This article presents the approximate levels of induced abortion in six Latin American countries- Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Peru. Through calculated data on the hospitalization of women's abortion complications, an estimated 550,000 women are hospitalized a year. To read more about the complications and calculations go here!

Several countries throughout Latin America have been fighting to end the continual violent attacks. "The More Guns, the more Violence" is one of the measures which will be discussed at the upcoming conference for NGO's. Over seven million rifles are produced each year and many of them are sent to Latin American countries.

Dalia Acosta's article addresses the gender equality issues throughout Latin America. Her interview of Julio César Gonzaléz presents an engaging, and possibly controversial, argument that women are not the only victims of Latin America's dominant and rigid patriarchal system and hierarchy: men also face an oppression, although different, due to the socially constructed concept of masculinity.

This article explains the issues of gender roles in Latin America. Julio César González, the Cuban General coordinator of the Ibero-American Masculinity Networkstates, "Until we scrutinise men's social roles and the concept of masculinity, we'll just be drawing circles around the women victims of the system." After completing 20 years of research in gender studies he tried to implement his findings in the real world, but faced resistance from people who only wanted to continue with the traditional stereotypes. Although the Cuban authorities have allowed women to be integrated into once all-male domains, there is still a long way for women to go to reach full equality.

This article from the LAtimes.com demonstrates an interesting outlook on drug possession throughout Latin America. Issues such as drug trafficking and recreational drug use throughout countries such as Mexico and Columbia have increased over the years. However, many proposed laws aimed at decriminalizing drug use have not been approved...This article discusses specific drug-related situations in Argentina, Brazil, and Columbia.