From Trauma to Hope: Laura's* Story
"Will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?" —Luke 18:7
Long before the sun rose on a morning in late November of 2005, 13-year-old Laura* shouldered a tub of corn and headed down the street from her house to a mill, where the corn would be ground into meal from which Carolina, her mother, would make tortillas. The mill she usually went to was closed, but Laura knew her mother was depending on her, so she ventured out farther to another mill.
On her way back home, Laura aroused the attention of three vagos, young men who passed their days in the street drinking and using drugs. It was still early in the morning and the streets were deserted.
The young men took advantage of the solitude. All three attacked and raped Laura, then told her they were members of the feared 18th Street Gang and threatened to kill her and her family if they called the police.
Laura was emotionally destroyed. She felt she was no longer worth anything—a feeling reinforced by neighbors who insulted and taunted her for being a rape victim. She wanted to die or disappear. She wanted to quit school, sure that all her classmates would look at her funny and tease her behind her back. She blamed herself for walking farther from home instead of waiting for her customary mill to open and blamed her parents for sending her on an errand so early in the morning.
Thankfully, a neighbor told Laura’s family about a Gideon Center located in Laura’s neighborhood. Gideon Centers are part of an Association for a More Just Society-supported project that provides free or low-cost legal aid and psychological counseling to poor Hondurans. Laura began therapy with the Gideon Center psychologist, who patiently helped her to begin healing emotionally.
The Gideon psychologist also passed on information about the case to co-workers working in another Association for a More Just Society-supported project, Peace & Justice.
Acting on a hunch that this was not the first rape Laura’s attackers had committed, an AJS-supported investigator tracked down photos and police files on a dozen repeat rapists known to live in the area. Sure enough, Laura identified one of the men who had assaulted her among those in the files. This enabled the investigator to identify the first attacker’s home and help police organize an operation that led to his arrest.
To capture the second attacker, the Peace & Justice team prodded police into joining them, and Laura, in an exhaustive three-day search in which they cruised every alley and back street for miles surrounding the scene of the crime. Finally, on a Saturday afternoon, Laura let out a soft cry: just steps away from their vehicle, one of her attackers was buying cigarettes from a corner store. A police officer immediately got out of the car and arrested him.
Peace & Justice Project staff continue helping police track down the third attacker, implementing witness-protection measures to keep Laura and Carolina safe, and coordinating with government prosecutors to work for convictions and just sentences for the attackers. The Gideon Project psychologist continues to help Laura heal emotionally.
“Without [AJS’s] help, I don’t know what we would have done,” says Laura's mother. Fear and poverty would probably have kept them from seeking help, she says.
“Laura tells me, ‘I can’t even describe what I suffered. The people who did this to me need to pay for it,’” she says .
Thankfully, because of ASJ’s help, justice will be done. And for Laura, though she will never forget, fear is gradually being replaced by hope.
Update 10/17/2007
In October 2007, the AJS-supported Peace & Justice Project helped police locate and arrest the third and final man who allegedely raped Laura. The men accused of violating Laura are reported to have raped up to eight other women in the same impoverished neighborhood—but of these survivors, only Laura has dared to break the silence and recount her experience repeatedly to police, prosecutors, and in court. Thanks to Laura's bravery, and to AJS support, justice is being done not only for Laura but also for many other women in her neighborhood who were terrorized by these gang members.
Read More Stories of Hope from the Gideon Project
*Name changed for privacy and security.
Breaking the Cycle of Violence: Putting an End to Vigilantism
Thanks to the intervention of the AJS-supported Peace & Justice project, a band of vigilantes who brutally murdered teenage boys suspected of being involved with gangs in a poor neighborhood in Honduras was recently convicted.
While the mothers of these boys will never get their sons back, they at least can be satisfied that the men
who took their sons from them have been brought to justice, and that they will not be able to harm any more boys from poor neighborhoods. read more
One October day in 2004, four staff members of a government institution whose goal is supposedly to rehabilitate troubled youths beat several juvenile inmates with wooden clubs. They beat them so severely that one inmate, who was struck on the hands, subsequently lost all his fingernails, and another suffered fractures in his hands and one of his arms. If the AJS-supported Peace & Justice Project had not intervened, this horrible beating would have gone unpunished. read more
Gerson [pronounced "Hair-son"]'s house is built on one of the few relatively flat pieces of ground in the steep, maze-like neighborhood of Villa Cristina in Tegucigalpa. But until recently, living there was in some ways just as precarious as living in nearby houses that keep an unsteady grip on sheer cliff faces.
The reason: Gerson had no legal title to the lot his home is built on. read more | watch video
"Tami"
"He even bought my entire bucket of tortillas." That's how doña Julieta* a resident of an impoverished neighborhood on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa, explains the way an AJS-supported lawyer went above and beyond the call of duty in rescuing and defending her teenage granddaughter from a kidnapper. read more | watch video
"María"
María (name changed for privacy) is just 13. By all rights she should be spending her days chatting with friends, enjoying classes and perhaps playing a prank our two with her classmates—in short, having a normal adolescence. Instead, since late November she spends most days locked in her house, scared and ashamed of what the gossipers in her small rural town will say about her: “raped.” read more
Tomasa Turcios and other Security Guards
In the five years Tomasa worked as a private security guard, her employers routinely forced her to work unpaid overtime (24-hour shifts were the norm) and illegally deducted the costs of uniforms and other equipment from Tomasa's pittance of a salary (only about $130 a month). They also withheld government-mandated bonuses. Once a manager confiscated Tomasa's gun, then accused Tomasa of stealing it and told her she would have to pay more than a month's salary to replace it...read more | watch video (Tomasa) | watch video (Betanco)
Bienvenida Carías
Getting a property title changed Bienvenida Carías' life. When Bienvenida moved to what is now the neighborhood of Flor del Campo, in Tegucigalpa, the only thing there was tall grass—and snakes. There were few neighbors and no electricity, telephone service, storm sewers, or running water. Almost the only thing Bienvenida and her six daughters did have was a dream—a dream of owning a small piece of land for themselves...read more
Yazmin Zuniga
The income Yazmin earned as a cashier at Popeye's Chicken wasn't much, but it helped her pay for classes and materials at the university, contribute part of her three younger brothers' tuition and school supplies, and supplement the meager income her mother earned working at a bakery in the lower-class neighborhood where they lived.
Things were fine for the first year and a half, but when a new manager took over Yazmin's job turned into a nightmare... read more
Felipa Mejia
Felipa is a single mother from Flores de Oriente, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Tegucigalpa. When she came to an AJS-supported Gideon Counseling Centers she suffered from anxiety about her son, who had fallen into crime and drug use.
Felipa's anxiety was so bad that she had stopped eating, and was in danger of starving herself to death. Thankfully, a friend stepped in and helped her get help at the Gideon counseling center in Nueva Suyapa...read more
Eufemia Cruz
Eufemia is one of 27 fast-food employees fired under illegal circumstances and denied legally mandated severance pay in early 2004. Some have since settled out of court for less than they are legally owed. But others, including Eufemia, have stuck with the case AJS is handling.
Eufemia is every bit as persistent as the woman in Jesus' Parable of the Persistent Widow...read more
The Association for a More Just Society (AJS) oversees and funds initiatives carried out by Honduran partner organization la Asociación para una Sociedad más Justa (ASJ). AJS is a US-registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit, so all donations to AJS are tax-deductible for US taxpayers.
| home | about AJS | donate | contact us | justice club |
| current cases | success stories | about Honduras | why Honduras? |