Nobel Women's Initiative

Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Nobel Peace Laureate and Laura Reyes are two indigenous women running for office in the upcoming Guatemalan presidential election.   Systemic violence and abuse of women prevails in the country, and the political involvement of these indigenous women is a call for gender inclusion, and recognition of indigenous rights.

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Rigoberta Menchu Tum is running for president, while Laura Reyes is running for Vice President. Both women come from ideologically different parties; Menchu Tum’s with the leftist Guatemalan Worker’s Party, and Reyes with Compromise, Renovation and Order party, known as CREO.  

Reyes is new to politics, working alongside the founder of Galileo University, presidential candidate Eduardo Suger.  Menchu Tum ran for political office for the first time in 2007.  This is her second attempt at the presidency. They are two of three women candidates overall, the third woman being former first lady, Sandra Torres, of the National Union of Hope.

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Guatemala Presidential Election Campaign Heats Up , LA Times, 28 July 2011.

Indigenous and Afri-Honduran Women: Autonomy and an end to violence against us, Latin Times, 22 July 2011.

Indigenous Women In Presidential Race, Latin Times, 22 July 2011.

The Challenge of Women's Political Participation in Guatemala, International Idea, 2002.