Cross-Border Gender Violence and Guatemalan Indigenous Women Refugees

This article examines the structural gender violence suffered by Guatemalan indigenous women and girl refugees. For this, a transborder intersectional analytical framework is employed, and the statements included in asylum applications are used along with interviews conducted with 24 indigenous women and girls, complemented by 60 interviews with judges, activists, lawyers and advocates who work in and for the Guatemalan courts specialised in gender violence. The integrated economic policy of the United States, Mexico and Central America, as well as the military, trade and immigration policies in the region are the wider framework in which gender violence has evolved and are an integral part of the lives of the indigenous women and girls fleeing Guatemala today.