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Nesly Lizet Consuegra Monterroso was 27 years old and had started her career as a freestyle rapper in Guatemala for ten years. She belonged to several collectives in which, according to her friends, she established networks in order to bring women closer to the freestyle of rap and hip-hop and to professionalize it. He disappeared on December 2, 2022 and three days later his body was found in a barrel in a car without a license plate that had been abandoned in the country’s capital with signs of extreme violence. Despite the fact that at least one woman is murdered every day in Guatemala and femicide accounts for 22% of all violent deaths of women, cases like Nesly’s still find it difficult to stay in the public eye and create a stir in society.
Nesly Consuegra, Neshie, as her relatives affectionately called her, had opened a bar in the center of the capital. On the night of her disappearance, she had left her premises and could not be found until her body was found in another part of town with clear signs of extreme violence. The cause of death was head trauma following a severe blow to the head, according to the National Institute of Forensic Sciences (Inacif). During a demonstration to demand justice for this case, Gabriela Bolten, rapper and singer, reminded the feminist medium Ruda that Neshie’s case was not an isolated one: “It is a case that responds to the structural violence of impunity that we experience in this country.” “. In the same medium, the group to which she belonged, Colectiva Urbana, published a small profile of Nesly, detailing her activism and her desire to connect with other women, both inside and outside of music To gain space, stand out: “She played football, she was.” He was an animal rights activist and devoted his time to caring for puppies at the vets he worked for for a number of years, which was our sister and colleague loving, helpful, someone who had time to listen, caring and passionate human being. We remember her with love and demand justice.”
For Pía Flores, a Guatemalan journalist who covers issues of gender-based violence extensively in the Central American country, Nesly’s case gained notoriety because the environment she belonged to allowed her to be “a little more visible” and learn more about her speak. The local hip-hop and rap scene demonstrated a few days after his assassination demanding justice. However, Flores assures that there are still many prejudices at all levels of society that prevent this type of violence from taking an important place in public debate: “It is still very difficult for people to view these cases from a gender perspective What is important is that she is respected in her trial, in the investigative process of her femicide, that the prejudices they despise for being a woman because she is visible, because she has a bar, are not applied to her become. That always happens, doesn’t it? She had a bar and was going out at that time, and then, well, we all know at that time you run the risk of getting killed. It’s not normal, as much as people want to insist on normalization.”
Last June, a report by the humanitarian organization Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo (GAM) showed that there had been 10,660 femicides in Guatemala over the past 14 years. And he pointed out that since the Femicide and Other Forms of Violence Against Women Act was passed, violence by femicide is “on the rise”. Since its passage in 2008, the legal mechanisms to address this issue have been “inadequate,” the document said.
Pia Flores notes that on an institutional and societal level there is still resistance to dealing with femicide and assures that the picture is not so different from the media: “The worst thing is that now there is also a political moment not only in Guatemala, you can also see that in other Latin American countries, what has to do with this left-right swing and tries to paint the world black or white. And that’s why when you define yourself as a feminist journalist, you’re already demonized or criticized, your work is disqualified, because then you can’t be objective, although in reality it never was,” she affirms.
On June 25, the first round of the presidential elections in Guatemala ended with a surprising result. The Seed Movement’s Bernardo Arévalo meets former first lady Sandra Torres in the second round on August 20. What does this result mean for women in Guatemala? Pia Flores hopes for the initiatives of the movement led by Arévalo, which initially includes in its structure a quota that will allow the integration of more women into its formation. This is a novelty among the country’s parties, he assures. “I really have no doubt that their policies are more progressive, but if they won, they would still be in the minority in Congress, and there’s real fighting going on in Congress, like legislation that they could improve conditions for.” women,” he concludes.
On April 5, Guatemalan authorities arrested a man for alleged femicide activities on Nesly Consuegra. Sources familiar with the case have asserted that the man would have had some sort of relationship with her at some point. In an interview with Nesly, while promoting her music and work, she replied: “Being a Guatemalan-born woman is a bit complicated. You have to struggle with the machismo, with the fact that they don’t give you space to rap, with the fact that you belittle your work, but over time we’ve managed to position ourselves quite well.
The name Nesly has been making rounds in Guatemala’s social imaginary in recent months. Her friends and relatives trying via social media or from the street have helped keep the issue on the agenda. This is not the case with the hundreds of thousands of women who are denouncing the different types of violence they face every day in this country.
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🎧 And to end a podcast: Chapter “Distorted Bodies” by Ciberlocutorio
Promotional image of “Ciberlocutorio”. Primavera Sound
Spaniards Andrea Gumes and Anna Pacheco are the creators of Radio Primavera Sound’s Ciberlocutorio, in which they emulate a model that has been shown to appeal to many people in Latin America, engaging in almost confidential conversations on the various issues that concern us women or simply as members of a Society that changes and transforms every day. In this episode, released May 29, they tackle what they describe as “an elephant in the room.”
In “Distorted Bodies” Andrea and Ana raise the complex issue of the female body, but not as seen and portrayed in advertising storms or in the media, let alone in public opinion. In this episode, they raise questions as important as discussing the urgent need to stop talking about women’s bodies as if they were a commons, a public resource on which to express and judge freely. And those questions are: what happens when you think you’re a “working” woman in that sense, but you’re not really comfortable with your body on the inside? Why not just get all these talks into us? And part of the answer they found is that it wasn’t possible to neglect aesthetics or what we consider beauty in our own bodies. That is to say, “It’s not so much how they look at us as it is how you look at yourself.” And that’s a liability,” they say.
In this episode, they review some of the readings by authors that helped them understand a little better the topic of physicality and how women face all sorts of constraints and inner prejudices when making decisions in our lives, and they talk about their own experiences and It was hard work for her not to fall into the trap of perpetuating these stereotypes almost of her own free will.
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