FAMDEGUA, the Association of Relatives of Detained-Disappeared of Guatemala, has over 22 years of experience supporting and accompanying members of Guatemala’s Mayan population who have been affected by regional poverty and migration, ongoing state violence, and the unresolved impact of the nation’s internal armed conflict that formally concluded in 1996. The group utilizes an alternative healing model that incorporates features of the Mayan cosmovision, herbal medicine, and political advocacy.

Last year, the group worked to support the families of individuals forcibly disappeared during the armed conflict as they continue to heal from the political, economic, social, and cultural violence of this experience and seek justice and formal recognition for their losses. Many of the family members are women who also experienced sexual violence in the context of the armed conflict. The program was thus aimed at female relatives of the disappeared and provided 12 workshops on trauma and violence in the departments of Alta and Baja Verapaz, Guatemala.

The workshops aimed to foster a climate of confidence, solidarity, and cooperation between the women as relatives of victims of enforced disappearance, as well as psychosocial support for them as they engage formally in Guatemala’s transitional justice processes and movements for truth and remembrance of the disappeared. The program coordinators observed these positive effects as well as growing trust between the participants and the departments’ public prosecutor and other Public Ministry staff who oversee many of the cases that pursue those responsible for crimes committed during the armed conflict.

In 2017-18, the group plans to continue these workshops and expand them to include participants from the municipality of Panzós in Alta Verapaz. They will also deepen their work to address participants’ experiences of sexual violence during the armed conflict, by 1) providing more focused psychosocial support and human rights education around this issue, 2) collecting testimonies and socializing patterns across women’s experiences, and 3) holding more dialogue and trust-building meetings with staff from the Public Ministry.