Prison guards’ arrest exposes vulnerability of female prisoners

Guatemalan authorities have made several arrests of prison guards involved in sexual exploitation practices that victimize women behind bars. This shows that the government rarely intervenes in a problem that often remains hidden. It highlights the challenge of fighting corruption in the prison system.

Police locked up eight prison guards on August 16, alleging they had sexually exploited female inmates in the departments of Suchitepéquez, El Progreso, Baja Verapaz and Guatemala. The guards charged male inmates money for transporting women to other prisons and forcing them to perform sexual acts, prison director Sergio Vela told local media.

The case follows the arrest in March of nine guards who allegedly trafficked young girls into prisons, where they were sexually abused by inmates. Some of the male inmates belonged to the Barrio 18 gang, and after abusing the girls, they forced them to commit crimes outside the prison, reports said. The case was part of a broader investigation by a division of the attorney general’s office focused on human trafficking (Unidad contra Estructuras Criminales y Casos Especiales de la Fiscalía contra la Trata de Personas). Another investigation in 2023 found three other guards at Mazatenango, a mixed prison, were charged between $40 and $200 per girl.

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Guatemala’s overcrowded prisons are hot spots for criminal activity, and corruption among prison staff is rife. Both the Barrio 18 and the Mara Salvatrucha (MS13), which traffics women, wield considerable power behind bars.

The number of women in prisons is increasing, putting more women in conditions that make them vulnerable to sexual exploitation and abuse. In 2015, women represented 9.1% of Guatemala’s total prison population. By 2023, that number had risen to 12.1%. Most female prisoners are between the ages of 18 and 35, said Andrea Barrios, who runs Colectivo Artesanas, a nongovernmental organization that advocates for women’s rights in prison in Guatemala.

Since taking office, the government of President Bernardo Areválo has pledged to clamp down on criminal activity and corruption in prisons, and authorities have conducted a series of raids on key penitentiaries and removed dozens of guards from their posts. But they face an uphill battle. “The problem we have is a penitentiary system that is out of control, in which many guards are involved (in corruption),” Guatemala’s interior minister, Francisco Jiménez, told Prensa Libre.

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These recent cases in Guatemalan prisons could be the tip of the iceberg of incidents of sexual exploitation made possible by prison guards and systemic corruption.

Barrios, who has daily contact with female prisoners in Guatemala, says this form of sexual exploitation is common but rarely investigated and prosecuted.

After the recent arrests, the female victims were transferred to other prisons. “That’s punishing, because it takes them away from where they know it, and their families,” Barrios said. None of the prison guards have been charged with trafficking, but instead have been accused of neglecting their duties and placed under house arrest.

Years of neglect, overcrowding, corruption and a lack of professionalization in the prison system have made prison oversight virtually impossible, said Corinne Dedik, an analyst at the Guatemala-based think tank Centro de Investigaciones Económicas Nacionales (CIEN).

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Systemic corruption within prison authorities is necessary for these types of trafficking and exploitation schemes to operate. No one can get in or out without the participation of prison guards, including those in charge of women-only units, and prison directors, Barrios explained.

A lack of career development or promotion also poses problems. “There is no career path in the Guatemalan prison system. Everyone gets their own training and they stay at that level because there is no chance to move up,” Dedik said. This opens the door to criminal incentives, she explained.

Most prisons in the country house both sexes, with women living in female-only zones in male-dominated prisons. The porous separation between men and women inside creates opportunities for exploitation, according to a 2023 report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).

“Women in prison have many needs that the state does not meet, and their families can only provide limited support,” Barrios said. Products such as shampoo, soap and sanitary towels are scarce, and families often have to provide them for prisoners. A large percentage of women in prison are also single mothers and the primary breadwinners in their families. “Those in power take advantage of women’s needs, and the authorities are responsible for that,” Barrios said. The control of criminal groups like Barrio 18 in prisons allows them to further corrupt and control officials so they can bring in women and girls.

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The government faces a difficult problem in tackling systemic corruption. “The prison system stagnated in the 1960s and 1970s, but today the world outside is different,” Dedik said. “Situations like this can only be improved through sustainable methods, which require fundamental, deep reforms.”

Barrios welcomes the recent arrests in prison sexual exploitation cases, but says she would like to see preventive measures taken, such as better screening by prison authorities and supervision of visiting rooms.

Main image: Police arrest prison guards involved in a sexual exploitation scheme in Guatemala. Credit: Guatemala Attorney General’s Office.