Aisling Walsh

Violence and discrimination are routine and many die in childbirth from largely preventable causes
Guatemala is marketed across the globe as the “Heart of the Mayan World”. Photographs of spectacular jungle pyramids and smiling indigenous women, carried on Piccadilly buses in London and splashed across screens in new York’s Times Square, promote a tourism industry worth almost $3.4 billion (€3 billion) a year.
On arriving in Guatemala, it is easy to recognise the vivid colours of Mayan tradit...

In the remote highlands of Guatemala, one of Latin America’s poorest countries, midwives work tirelessly to help indigenous women for whom the pregnancy mortality rate is more than double the national average
Graciela Velásquéz lights three candles and places them at the foot of the altar in her living room. She gives thanks to the four elements and welcomes us into her home by inviting us to light our own candles.
Graciela is a “keeper of time” – or Mayan spiritual guide – a human rights def...

A 30-year-old Indigenous woman from a rural community uses her personal experience and passion to champion the rights of Indigenous people, women, and activists against violence and corruption.
Jovita Tzul Tzul was just 8 years old when she won a village competition to become a “judge for a day.” It was her first taste of the legal system, and from that moment she knew she wanted to be a lawyer when she grew up. Now, at age 30, Tzul Tzul is one of Guatemala’s youngest Indigenous women defendi...

On 20 July, a still-unidentified person released pepper spray in the men’s bathrooms at a historical trade union hall in Guatemala City. The venue was hosting an anniversary party for a group of transgender rights activists after the city’s 19th annual LGBTIQ+ Pride parade. Two activists, who were in the bathroom at the time, were directly hit by the gas. A number of other people abandoned the party amidst irritation to their eyes and throats.
Three hours later...

In 2016 a 16 year old Argentinian girl, Lucía Pérez, met up with two men she thought were friends, who she thought she was going to hang out with and smoke some weed. They led her to an abandoned building, brutally raped her, impaled her and left her to die. Does this sound familiar?
Now, we have just learned the verdict in the Ana Kriegel case, in which she was lured to an abandoned building, by two boys she knew, brutally raped, beaten and left to die. Ana was 14. Her murderers, known only ...

“We are women who have suffered. The culprits need to realize the harm they caused, the errors they committed,” said María*, one of 36 Maya Achi women who are bringing a case against soldiers who had raped them during Guatemala’s 36-year internal armed conflict, which ended in 1996. Their case also names the Guatemala State for using sexualized violence as a weapon of war.
The women, all from the Rabinal region of Baja Verapaz, were subject to multiple rapes while detained at a local military...

Guatemala City—At the center of Guatemala City's Central Square, under a billowing blue and white national flag, stands a little ring of iron crosses. The improvised altar of 41 crosses, one for each of the girls who lost their lives in a fire at the Hogar Virgen de la Asunción orphanage (“Virgin of the Assumption Safe Home,” or HSVA) 25 km to the south of Guatemala City in the municipality of San José Pinula, on March 8, 2017, International Women's Day.
The crosses are held in place by cheap...

There was a military structure that designed, planned and executed operations aimed at eradicating Guatemala’s indigenous peoples. Español

On Wednesday September 26, at about 7pm, in a courtroom filled to bursting point, the High Risk Court B declared, for the second time in five years, that genocide was committed in Guatemala.

Following more than two years of witness testimonies, forensic evidence and expert reports the court declared that they had sufficient evidence to prove that the Guate...

The future of one of the largest archives containing documents related to the 36 years of internal armed conflict in Guatemala and the dirty wars in Latin America is currently at risk. Español
The Historical Archive of the National Police in Guatemala (AHPN in Spanish), discovered in 2005, is a repository of up to 80 million police records dating as far back as the late 1800's. Many of these documents have served as vital evidence in cases relating to crimes committed during Guatemala's 36 ye...

Topical FeaturesTopical
The Private and Public Shame of Cervical Cancer
By Aisling Walsh Last updated Oct 12, 2018
Does anyone remember Jade Goody? She, was the young, mouthy, English Big Brother star, who lived her time from diagnosis to death from cervical cancer on the small screen. Jade found out she had cervical cancer while on Big Brother India in August 2008, only days before my own mother passed away from the disease in Marymount Hospice, Cork. She died in March 2009 at 27.
I could ba...

Now almost 350 years old, Guatemala City has survived wars, earthquakes and civil unrest. This metropolitan hub proves a chaotic mixture of colonial arches, crumbling art deco facades and architectural leftovers dating back to the 1980s. Street sellers hawk everything from batteries to freshly squeezed goats milk, while every street corner features a different preacher, clown, painter, artisan or activist. It is a thriving city where people from all corners of the country mix and trade daily,...

Mayan women’s bodies, labour and knowledge have been exploited for centuries. This is an old story, with a neoliberal twist. Español.
The fruit seller, the tortilla maker, the domestic worker, the nanny. These are the Marías of Guatemala. Indigenous women, who continue to wear traditional Mayan dress. They are seemingly considered undeserving, of an identity or even a name of their own; valued only to the extent to which they serve others.
It doesn't matter if they are teachers, lawyers, acad...

Backstrap weaving with a hand loom tied at the waist (telar de cintura) is an art that has been passed down through Mayan communities for generations.

Blessed Is The Fruit Of Thy Womb, Or Why I Ran Out On My Moon Mother Workshop
Why did a workshop designed to make me feel comfortable with my body leave me feeling so gross?
I t was a long and winding road that led me to the basement of a 19th century stately house in Brussels for my initiation. Lined along a narrow stairwell leading down to the basement with 40 or so other women, all in bare feet, all waiting in silent awe for Miranda Gray to personally welcome us into the Moon Mother sister...

Aisling Walsh is a 31 year old Irish woman living and working in Guatemala since January 2014. She ‘fell in’ with Magdalenas Guatemala in April 2015 and they have gradually taken over her life. When she is not trying to transform the world with these wonderful women she is practicing as a doula and studying to be a midwife in the Galileo University of Guatemala. In her previous life she worked for an Irish NGO here in Guatemala and once upon a time she obtained a Masters of International Law ...