Like a Bird on a Dead Brance: Mayan Women and Children in Conflict

Abstract

This thesis is a research-based analysis of the experiences of Mayan women and children during the peak years of the Guatemalan Civil War. The paper has two main goals: first, to establish if the brutality used on the part of the Guatemalan army constitutes genocide, and second, to understand why women and children were specifically targeted during the seemingly indiscriminate violence. The research used for this paper includes sources from numerous fields of study, including psychology, political science, sociology, anthropology, and history. The purpose of this is to provide an interdisciplinary approach to the topic, in the hopes of examining all sides of such a complex issue. Possible implications of this work are an increased awareness on the part of the reader of the situation in which Mayan women and their children find themselves, and the possibility that more social scientists will choose to conduct their research in the Guatemalan altiplano to gain more information and insight into the lives of the Mayan people.