Paulina Ixtapá Alvarado, a Maya Achi woman, was 19 years old when she was detained just outside the market in Rabinal, in northeastern Guatemala, by a local militia. It was September 1983, the height of Guatemala’s brutal counterinsurgency war. She was brought to a military base about 15 minutes from the town. There, she was held illegally for 25 days in a small room with several other people, including her cousin, Pedrina Ixtapá Rodríguez, and at least two other women.
