New Gideon Center Brings Hope for Girl Raped by Neighbor
"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
María (name changed for privacy) is just 14. 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.”
María 's mother abandoned her as an infant. Her father recently left to try his chances as an undocumented worker in the U.S. María lives with her grandmother and two small cousins. They love her, but can do little to protect her.
One day a little over three months ago, María 's cousins were playing outside. Her grandmother was off doing errands. A 16-year-old neighbor who had taken an unhealthy interest in her, along with his conniving sisters, took advantage of the situation.
The sisters went to María 's house and chatted pleasantly with her. Then they introduced their brother. Then, they fled the room and locked the door from the outside while he raped María .
On the few occasions María got up the courage to leave the house after that day, the sisters would snicker and call out “raped!” “raped!” whenever she walked past.
Though María had reported the crime to police and been seen by a medical examiner, her casefile remained buried in the local police chief's filing cabinet and no actions were taken against her attacker.
For months, it seemed there was little hope for María to ever return to a normal life.
But thanks to the new AJS-supported Gideon Center opened recently in María 's town, hope has been restored.
Trained volunteers at the new Gideon Center in Santa María del Real, Olancho, brought María 's story to the attention of a lawyer and psychologist who work with the Center seeing cases and advising volunteers at the center twice a month.
The psychologist is helping to heal María 's deep emotional scars; the lawyer has used other police contacts to convince the police in Olancho to begin investigating.
The emotional damage María has suffered will take months or even years to heal. But at least now, in the Gideon Center in Olancho, she has a friend and advocate who will not leave her side until she is healed—and until justice is done.
Update
In September of 2007, the young man who raped María was found guilty in court and sentenced to spending two years in a juvenile rehabilitation center. Thanks to continued counseling through the AJS-supported Gideon Center in Olancho, María's emotional health has greatly improved. Thanks to AJS, justice has been done for María.Read More Stories of Hope from the Gideon Project
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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
Laura's Story: From Trauma to Hope
Early in the morning as she did errands for her mother, then-13-year-old Laura was accosted by three young men who beat her, raped her, and before leaving her sobbing in an alley, threatened to kill her if she told anyone what had happened. Rape and gang rape occur with disturbing frequency in Honduras' poor urban neighborhoods, but nearly all such crimes go unpunished—often because victims are too ashamed, to frightened of reprisals, and have too little trust in the police to report them.
But Laura did report the crime committed against her, and thanks to her bravery, and to the AJS-supported Peace & Justice Project, all three of her attackers have been arrested and are awaiting trial. 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
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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
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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.
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