Rosalina Tuyuc Velásquez, a Guatemalan human rights activist, has never given up looking for truth and justice, since her father and husband were disappeared during the Guatemalan civil war. After her father and husband were kidnapped and murdered by government forces during the Guatemalan civil war, she founded the National Association of Guatemalan Widows (CONAVIGUA). It is now a leading national human rights organisation. In 1995, she was elected as a Congressional deputy, and in 2004 she chaired the National Reparations Commission to investigate crimes committed during the civil war, which raged for over three decades.

On the margins of the annual UN Security Council Open Debate on Women, Peace and Security in New York, at a side event on 30 October, survivors, leaders and experts came together to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the mandate of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict.

Thelma Aldana is the Public Prosecutor and Head of the Public Ministry of Guatemala, who will complete her term in May 2018. She is known as a champion of women’s rights, UN Security Council Resolution 1325, and the force behind the creation of specialized courts for femicide and violence against women cases in 2010. Today, there are 12 of these specialized courts in Guatemala. UN Women has supported the Public Ministry in adopting and implementing the Women and Men´s Equality...