SOUTH AMERICA

Juanita Batzibal

Mayan Woman Works for Harmony and Women’s Rights

“The situation in Guatemala is not only caused by 36 years of warfare, but also by the marginalization of indigenous people and their lack of access to resources, that has been going on for centuries. One of the main obstacles to peace is that many Guatemalans still need basic things. And until they can have access to them, they feel hopeless.”

The indigenous peoples of Guatemala, the Mayas, make up over 60 percent of a population of 10 million. Yet Guatemala has one of the world's most inequitable distributions of land, with three percent of the population owning over 70 percent of the land, and ninety percent of Mayas not even having enough land to grow food for their families.

Juanita Batzibal is an indigenous Guatemalan woman who fled her homeland during the Guatemalan civil war in 1992 and became a political refugee. She spent eighteen years in exile in Costa Rica where she helped to create programs for preserving Mayan culture for the International Mayan League.

While in exile, Juanita made several visits to the UN in Geneva, lobbying for the recognition of Indigenous People's rights, and to bring an end to the war.

Today Batzibal works for human rights organizations in strengthening indigenous women's identity, in education and in recognizing the injustices of the past in order to build a society that respects difference.