The two struggles of Beatriz Miranda in El Salvador: from saving her life to fighting for the lives of others

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Beatriz Miranda subverts order and customs through her work as a feminist leader in a small town called Huizúcar, in La Libertad, on the outskirts of San Salvador.

His parents instilled in him the fight for justice in the midst of the civil war in the 1980s. He believed that, with that militancy, he had learned about human rights, but it was upon arriving in this town, 14 years ago, that he sought out the movement of women responses that he had not had at any other stage of his life.

There she found the meaning to fight for others.

At 52 years old, Beatriz is the president of the Huizucareña Women's Association, the guide of one hundred women of different ages in her community.

She is in charge of seeking alliances with other organizations to provide workshops on violence prevention, economic autonomy, sexual and reproductive health, and environmental protection in a town with water sources from which private companies have tried to benefit.

Without formal education – she was only able to complete the basic cycle – this mother of six children who works as a domestic worker cleaning houses located in wealthy areas of San Salvador has sought training through workshops.

“That's why I can speak the way I speak,” says the woman with dark skin and sunken temples due to age.

Her hair is dark, long, and wavy, and she dyes her gray hair on the recommendation of one of her daughters, who is a cosmetologist.

“I feel free to dress how I want.

At this age, I started to enjoy makeup and clothes.”

Feeling comfortable with who she is and what she does is part of Beatriz Miranda's journey, who went from fleeing to save her own life to fighting for the lives of others, a journey that has even led her to seek a seat in the Congress of El Salvador, although he was not successful.

At the beginning of the month, she ran as a representative for the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), the traditional leftist party in the country, opposed to the all-powerful Nayib Bukele.

She did so convinced of continuing to support her colleagues, after seeing that neither the “president nor the current deputies have priority in defending women,” she assures.

Beatriz's two escapes

Beatriz lived a childhood marked by constant internal displacement.

During the war, her parents denounced government repression, and the National Guard, a former police and military force, stormed her home in Apopa, west of San Salvador, to arrest them.

She was then a 9-year-old girl, and the military threatened to kill her along with her brothers.

So, they had to go live in a shelter home.

Ana Beatriz Miranda, at the facilities of the Huizucareña Women's Association on February 2. Gladys Serrano

A few years later, she met a man with whom she fell in love and they exiled to Guatemala.

Both returned with the 1992 Peace Accords. But back in their country, life was not easy.

The money was not enough to support her six children and pay the rent.

So, they decided to move to Huizúcar, a small town with few paved streets and where there was a lot of gang presence, according to the Police.

But also the place that opened Beatriz's horizons.

A neighbor told her that there was an organization where they taught workshops to empower women.

Beatriz enthusiastically arrived at the house painted with murals, located on a corner of the busiest streets in Huizúcar, where they met.

She sat in the last seats, she remembers, and she didn't want to raise her hand to ask questions.

“I was impressed.

I didn't know anything about the types of violence that exist.

"I better kept silent."

Little by little, she learned women's rights.

Meanwhile, at her home, her husband mistreated her.

“I didn't want her to accept a cleaning job at the mayor's office because she said I was going to meet men.

She hit me, but that didn't stop me from taking the job,” she says.

“One, as a woman, believes that they are going to change when they come back to look for us and that is why we come back.

It is difficult for us to get out of the circle of violence,” she maintains.

The more involved she became in the organization, Beatriz was changing some of her behaviors and having more autonomy.

Her ex-partner perceived it.

On January 16, 2015, he tried to stab her.

“I came back from work.

Maybe he was on drugs or drunk, but I didn't want him to go to the mill with the children.

I told him that I was going to go anyway.

At that moment, he took out the knife and pointed it at my face, but thank goodness my oldest son was in the house and stopped him,” she remembers.

Mentor to other women

So, he went to the association.

And, with the help of the Women's Development Institute (Isdemu), she was transferred to a shelter created for victims of violence.

“I took refuge again like I did when I was a girl.

I filed a complaint and they released him the next day.

So I finally decided to quit.”

That experience gave her more strength and she ended up becoming one of the leaders of the association, where they offer training workshops against gender violence and assistance to those who suffer from it, but they also promote productive reforestation activities, community gardens and markets where they sell their products. products such as chamomile and sapuyulo shampoo.

In addition, Beatriz has become a mentor to other women like Julia, who reported having been kidnapped and raped by gang members five years ago and survived an assassination attempt by her ex-partner.

Beatriz's work—she helped find shelter for Julia after she reported her attacker—made him try to run her over.

But she doesn't give up: “I tell her not to worry.

I will stay alive.

“I was saved from the war, from my ex-partner, and this person will not hurt me.”

she assures.

According to Beatriz, it takes time for women who suffer sexist violence to understand what they are experiencing.

That's why they go to the police late and some prefer to remain silent for fear of being left alone, but also of what people will say.

Between 2018 and 2022, El Salvador recorded 951 violent deaths of women and, in that same period, 97,022 were victims of violence, according to data from the Organization of Salvadoran Women for Peace (Ormusa).

Despite this, President Nayib Bukele has only referred to violence against women on one occasion since coming to power in 2019. It was at a national conference on June 4, 2020, and he did so to attack feminist organizations that , he said, they should be “happy” about the decrease in cases of violence against them in the first months of their Government.

“61% fewer women have died than those who died in the same period of the previous Government... that is, women are 61% safer in this Government,” said the president the day he presented the Territorial Control Plan, the national security strategy to address gang violence, although he did not give details about it.

And he accused feminist organizations of not defending women, but rather the opposition FMLN party.

But Beatriz knows that violence against women persists and that is what led her to take the leap into politics.

And, although she did not get a seat in a Congress where the ruling party won the majority, she has no regrets.

“I tried, which is what matters.

Now I have to continue leading this community of women,” she says.

While she continues fighting for others, Beatriz has the support of her children, although she recognizes that they are worried about her: “No one tells me to stop doing what I like.

They just tell me to be careful, because I get involved with violent men to take care of women.”