Abstract
In male-dominated cultures characterised by machismo, women are victims of violence on a daily basis. In Latin America, hundreds of women are killed every year, simply for being women. Against this panoramic backdrop, this article focuses on the most severe form of violence against women (VAW); it concentrates on structural anti-female violence, particularly the weaponisation of the female body. The use of the female body as a weapon has been a constant throughout time in different contexts: in military and paramilitary conflicts, in guerrilla warfare, in forced evictions, and territorial disputes of organised crime. Two emblematic cases of gangs in the Northern Triangle Countries (NTC) ―including El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala― and human trafficking in Mexico illustrate that women are at the mercy of a system that has surpassed state authorities’ capacity to enforce the law and subjects thousands of women and girls to inhumane treatment. In both cases, VAW is used in various ways as a tool to maintain the power dynamics within and between gangs and drug cartels.
Keywords: Latin-America, Weaponisation, Violence against Women
By Berenice Fernandez Niet & Mara-Katharina Thurnhofer
The New Nature of War: The Message on the Bodies
Rita Segato, one of the most recognised experts in studies on gender violence in Latin America, sustains that the cruelty with which VAW is exercised today is different from gender crimes, as it reflects a transformation in the nature of war [1]. Segato mentions that a defiled female body sends a message of unlimited violent capacity and low human sensitivity thresholds.
The cases analysed in this article illustrate how the use of violence and the dehumanisation of female bodies are used as a demonstration of power. Over the years, the patriarchal system in Latin America has normalised VAW, where women and girls must submit to the control of a male power structure and organised crime, which use their bodies as weapons and territories where a bloody message is inscribed. Following Segato's interpretation, a mutilated and violated body sends a message to all other criminals that they can act freely.
The appropriation, abuse, exploitation, destruction, and exhibition of the female body send a message beyond impunity. It is an exhibit of power and dominance, demonstrates control over the adversaries’ property, shows the reproduction of the patriarchal order that crosses the boundaries of human rights whenever it wishes, and ultimately clarifies who holds a territory’s reins.
The Northern Triangle Countries
Gangs such as the Mara Salvatrucha or Barrio 18 have long been one of the main factors behind organised crime and violence in the so-called Northern Triangle Countries [2]. The vast majority of youth in the NTC is vulnerable to join these criminal organisations because of coercion or poverty. Based on the patriarchal system structure, these gangs were mainly equipped by young men, and the few women who had joined the gang were not allowed to participate in illegal activities. Although young women were assigned more tasks over time within the gangs, traditional gender roles remained, meaning work was performed based on stereotypical dynamics. Additionally, drug trafficking perpetrated by gangs is permeated by a macho culture that normalises physical, psychological, and sexual VAW, viewing the female body as an object for domination, biological reproduction, and pleasure [3].
The Northern Triangle is considered the deadliest corner of the region; with women being the victims of violent acts between or within gangs [4]. For example, targeted assassinations of women have been used as warfare tactics or retaliatory strikes against rival gangs and governmental authorities [5]. For instance, in Guatemala City (2011), a case was published in which the head of a young woman was found in a phone booth, warning local police not to target extortion [6]. Violent acts such as this one send a message to both the authorities and criminal gangs alike. Patsil Toledo, a Chilean lawyer, acknowledges that “cruelly raping women is symbolic; it creates cohesion within armed groups” [7]. Meaning that not only is it a violent act, but gangs use women’s bodies to highlight male superiority.
Organised Crime in Mexico
Similar to the case of the gangs in Central America, the weaponisation exercised by organised crime cartels affects thousands of women who are kidnapped daily and forced into sex slavery and other inhumane treatments [8].
The employment of women’s bodies in organised crime ranges from forced prostitution to drug smugglers and extortion collectors. Cartels transform their bodies into exploitable and replaceable merchandise, and as cannon fodder in the context of confrontations where defeat is inevitable; still, the loss of those lives is insignificant in the eyes of the exploiters. This dynamic is illustrated in the case of a young Central American migrant who survived seven years of sexual slavery at two of the most prominent organised crime groups in Mexico: “Los Zetas” and “El Cartel del Golfo” [9].
Indeed, the sexual exploitation of women by cartels explains, to a large extent, the absence of thousands of women in Mexico. According to data from 2020, there are 18,258 missing and unallocated women and girls in Mexico, most of whom are between 15 and 19 years old [10]. Not counting the thousands of Central American women and girls of whom there is no precise record. Still, according to UNODC figures, six out of ten are captured by Mexican criminal organisations [11]. Many voices point out that the missing women in Mexico are not missing but are victims of trafficking at the hands of the drug cartels to which the state’s authority has been surpassed [12].
The above exemplifies the appropriation, exploitation and weaponisation by cartels like “Los Zetas”, “El Cartel del Golfo”, and other 47 Mexican criminal organisations engaged in the human trafficking business [13]. According to official figures, in Mexico, crimes related to trafficking and sexual exploitation increased considerably in 2014, 2017, and 2019 [14], as did the number of missing persons, especially minors. It is an issue that has been worsening over time and was a consequence of the confrontation between the state and the drug cartels that began in 2006 and led the cartels to venture into other criminal activities to increase their power [15].
Concluding Remarks
The violence resulting from the confrontation of gangs and drug cartels in the NTC and Mexico places women in the middle of a battlefield, where they are used as objects of sexual exploitation, tactics of warfare, drug couriers, and also used as murders [16]. In this context, the use of violence on the female body is a common mechanism to reproduce power dynamics, secure respect and gain control over female members of the groups.
The war on drugs and gang confrontation have normalized and exacerbated misogynist violence [17]. Today, in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, violence has become more inhumane towards women, with torture and dismemberment being more common ways of exercising and demonstrating power. In this sense, as Woodman [18] states: “It is not just that they take their lives. It is how they take them” because the limits of human dignity have been crossed and women become disposable objects.
References:
[1] Segato, R.L. (2014). “Las nuevas formas de la guerra y el cuerpo de las mujeres,” Sociedade E Estado, 29(2): p. 341-371.
[2] Cheatham, A. (2019). “Central America’s Turbulent Northern Triangle,” Council on Foreign Relations, [online] available from https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/central-americas-turbulent-northern-triangle accessed on 26th January 2021.
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[5] Aguilar & Rikker, Op. Cit.
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[9] Balderas, Op. Cit..
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[12] La Jornada (2020). “Cuarta parte de víctimas de desaparición en México son mujeres: CNB,” in La Jornada, 7th October, [online] available from https://www.jornada.com.mx/ultimas/politica/2020/10/07/una-cuarta-parte-de-victimas-de-desaparicion-en-mexico-son-mujeres-cnb-2757.htmlhttps://www.jornada.com.mx/ultimas/politica/2020/10/07/una-cuarta-parte-de-victimas-de-desaparicion-en-mexico-son-mujeres-cnb-2757.html , accessed on 26th January 2021.
[13] Salinas, Op. Cit.
[14] Velasco-Domínguez, M. L. & Salomé Castañeda, X. (2020). “Desaparición de mujeres y niñas en México: aportes desde los feminismos para entender procesos macrosociales,” in Revista de Ciencias Sociales, no. 67, [online] available from https://www.redalyc.org/jatsRepo/509/50963078006/html/index.html , accessed on 3rd February 2021.
[15] Salinas, Op. Cit.
[16] Ídem.
[17] Woodman, S. (2016). “Women fall victim to violence in Mexico’s decades-old war on drugs”. Reuters, 22th December, [online] available from, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-violence-women-idUSKBN14B22Y , accessed on 26th January 2021.
[18]Ídem