November 25th, 2010

November 25th, 2010, Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The Law for a Life Free of Violence for Women in El Salvador is approved. As the country with the number one rate of femicides in the world, its about time something changes.  Hopefully this law will actually be enacted.  

Here is why...

On October 21st, on the Las Quebradas finca, in the municipality of Talnique, La Libertad, the bodies of Clarisa Ortiz Valle,14 years old; Julia Araceli Hernández Torres, 14 years old;  María Vicenta Ávalos Pérez, 15 years old and Georgina Lisseth Álvarez Cruz, 18 years old, were found stangled and maimed at the hands of supposed friends of theirs.

In the past ten years in El Salvador, violence against women has increased by 197%, making it the number one place for femicides in the world, with 129.46 assassinations per one million women.

A Mother's Heart

I wrote this after spending the day working with a team who was interviewing women who participated in the Civil War here in El Salvador.

I think every mother
has the same heart.
In that the thing that we love the most
And the thing that we most fear losing
Are the same.

Something in our biology
That makes us ache for our children if we haven't seen them enough
That puts our attention on something else first, before ourselves
Is he hungry? Is she safe? Will they always feel my love?

And it is that heart
That breaks
For other mothers
And their loss.

My heart, my mother heart,
breaks with the pain of the Salvadoran mother.