Maybe I'll talk about Sepur Zarco, because it's very fresh in my mind. I was with the women just recently.
I've met them a number of times over the years. In different circumstances, and sometimes when we were taking pictures of them, they would put veils over their faces because it was too dangerous for them to be seen to be involved in the case. When we met with them in the supreme court, their faces were veiled as well. We went into a corridor at one point to have a meeting with them and they took off their veils because they said that they felt that they were among people they could trust.
That process has been very long. The women, as I mentioned, were very traumatized, and sometimes with many problems in their own community, when the community members accused them of being responsible for their own rapes. Fifteen of the men were killed and 11 of the women were taken to the military base. Four women among the widows—because the men were disappeared and then murdered—went up into the mountains. They were hiding. They were trying to eke out an existence in a very difficult situation.
Ten years ago in this process, a group called the Breaking the Silence alliance brought together three Guatemalan organizations: one, UNAMG, which is the National Union of Guatemalan Women; another one, which provides psychosocial support, called ECAP; and another one called Women Transforming the World, which provides legal support.
The initial work with the women was just to meet with them, to start talking, to break them out of their silence, to find people who knew the communities very well—obviously, they were speaking Kekchi, so you needed those people—and to gradually bring the women together so they were able to share their stories and find consolation in the fact that they were sharing what happened to them. It was very long process. Finally, it was about talking with them about the litigation, because it's one thing to bring them together, but the other thing is that they're going to be going before the courts and they're going to have relive and tell the story over again.
I have to say that it's been a very long process. That's why I say that some of these things take decades to do. It's not a short-term process. The women now are very happy. They're very happy with the results. They feel that all of their sacrifices were worth it. One woman died in the last years before the process came about, but she gave advance testimony so that it could be included in the trial.
I think that enabling women to become, to have the transformation from being a victim to having their own agency, is a long process. It involves a lot of multidisciplinary actions at various levels. Yes, this was really an important experience.