Mujeres en la lucha por la Justicia

1. Mujeres en la lucha por la Justicia Women in the Struggle for Social Justice Vivian V. Colon

2. Digna Ochoa Human Rights Defender • Worked in Centro de Derechos Humanos Miguel Agustin Pro

3. Father was a union leader in a sugar factory

4. Ochoa took on some of the most controversial cases in Mexico

5. Ochoa was kidnapped more than once in her life.

6. She received repeated mail death threats at her office.

7. “It’s injustice that motivates us to do something, take risks, knowing that if we don’t things will remain the same”

8. Digna received threatening letters and submitted them to the police department and the Attorney General’s investigators .

9. Digna received an Enduring Spirit Award from Amnesty International on September 25, 2000.

10. Digna Ochoa continued her struggle until October 19, 2001, her body was found in her office.

11. All of the newspapers stated that Digna Ochoa had taken her own life, her supporters knew she had been murdered.

12. On July 20, 2004, the Human Rights Commission of Mexico released a 200-page report, challenging the government's position that Ochoa had not been murdered. The three state prosecutors—who were appointed to investigate Ochoa's death—had concluded that Ochoa had been distraught and that she committed suicide. They also claimed that she had made up death threats against her to draw attention her human rights cases.

13. On Feb. 25, 2005, bowing to a court’s decision the state prosecutors reopened the investigation in Ochoa’s death. Members of Mexico's Human Rights Commission have questioned the integrity and consistency of the state's investigation into Ochoa's death all along.

14. Digna Ochoa 1961- 2001 “They are after me but I will not live in fear”

15. Rigoberta Menchu(1959- )

16. Guatemalan Activista young Rigoberta who would lose her whole family to violence by age 20

17. Menchu brought international attention to the indigenous people of Guatemala, she had to flee her native land fearing the government would take action against her.

18. Menchu spoke against the massive oppression the that the Indian peasant population endured.

19. There are 22 indigenous groups in Guatemala, Rigoberta is Quiche. They all have roots in the Mayan culture.

20. Rigoberta Menchu became well known after 1983 when she published I, Rigoberta Menchu. Rigoberta is committed to pursuing justice And peace for the indigenous and the poor. She writes about the violence against the community, the killings, the abuse, the Broken bones of not only her father’s body But the community. She speaks of the kidnappings, the torture And her own loss, her father was tortured And killed, her mother raped, mutilated and Killed. She also mentions her brother who Was burned alive in 1979

21. Rigoberta returned to Guatemala on repeated occasions to join demonstrations around the 500 year anniversary of Christopher Columbus discovering the Americas. She received a death threat just 2 months before receiving the Nobel Prize.

22. In 1992, Rigoberta Menchu Tum became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Prize. She was only 33 years old.

23. Rigoberta has continued her struggle for justice in Guatemala and abroad. She has been involved in the news in regards to the Xaman massacre. Xaman Massacre: October 5, 1995 soldiers killed 12 people (Guatemalan refugees) and injured 27 at a celebration for Guatemalan refugees that had returned from exile in Mexico.

24. A very important human rights struggle is taking place in post-war Guatemala: the fight to end impunity. The current reality is that despite the continued labor by many different sectors to bring the perpetrators to justice, the Guatemalan judicial system has yet to manage these cases in a solid and meaningful way, despite the reforms mandated of it by the Peace Accords.

25. Rigoberta still talks about this injustice. • Three and a half years after the signing of the Accords, only a handful of violators involved have been tried and sentenced for crimes they committed during the thirty-six year civil war, in which thousands of gross violations including abductions, assassinations, and massacres occurred.

26. She continues her work through the Rigoberta Menchu Tum Foundation. She has been and will continue to be a great liberator. “We don’t need advice, theories or books, because life itself is our teacher. I have been made to understand in the depth of my soul what discrimination really means.”

27. Other Subjugated Hispanic Voices Across the Spectrum Dylcia Pagan was born and raised in New York City. She studied sociology at Brooklyn College where she founded the Puerto Rican Students Union. She was jailed for 20 years in federal prison for charges on seditious conspiracy. Nina Pacari rose from a marginalized childhood in Ecuador to become one of the leading women in the indigenous movement. She is a voice for the Quechua and African voices in Ecuador. Margarita Lopez Councilwoman Margarita Lopez serves in the New York City Council, representing the Lower East Side of Manhattan and surrounding areas. She chairs the Mental Health, Mental Retardation, Alcoholism, Drug Abuse, and Disability Services Committee.