Icons of the Past: Stories about children born of violence in the Guatemalan and Peruvian Truth Commissions

Abstract

This dissertation examines the stories about children born of violence that were told by victims and survivors during the gathering of testimonies of sexual violence against women for the truth commissions in Guatemala and Peru. The truth commissions used the stories about children born of violence to reinforce their narratives on sexual violence. In doing so, children born of violence became proof of the violence against their mothers, their families and their communities. Children born of violence became essential pieces of evidence in proving their mother's victimhood and claims of justice. The rest of their stories told in the truth commission setting did not appear in the final reports and were left behind in the archive. This is significant as until now little is known about these children. The accurate number of war babies born in the world is unknown due to secrecy and silence around them. Guatemala and Peru are not an exception. The analysis of the stories about children born of violence challenge our social understanding of justice, reconciliation, recognition, family, love, trauma and suffering, as well as the general legacies of the violence. The dissertation analyses the stories about children born of violence that are in the testimonies and documents from the truth commission's archives and in the final reports from the truth commissions. These stories about children born of violence in the testimonies have the potential and power to be counter-narratives. The stories about children born of violence that were left in the truth commission's archive were the ones that did not reinforce their mothers' victimhood. In leaving these stories, the dominant narratives on children born of violence promoted by truth commissions are constructed as something undesirable, a negative long-lasting legacy for the mothers, the community and the nation. Therefore, the truth commission became the place where master narratives reinforced injustice to these children. The stories and documents gathered by the truth commission were analysed through documentary and archival research. The analysis showed that the stories and documents proving the rapes and children born afterwards also provided evidence about the contestation over the identity and political belonging of these children (born of violence) by their mothers, family, community, and state but also by themselves. The contestation over the identities of children born of violence takes place, in this dissertation, in their names, paternity and legitimacy. The contested political belonging of children born of violence highlights that the political function of these children is not only in reflecting about the trauma of war, but rests in their unique political status contributing to a wider understanding of accountability and justice. The relevance of the dissertation's argument is clear: we must create a space where children born of violence can tell their stories and contest any attempt to simplify and homogenize their stories and injustices by truth commissions and several other mechanisms of transitional justice. Children born of violence have an important role in the construction and contestation about the memory of conflict and efforts of peacebuilding due to their unique political status. Show more