For This Group of Feminists in El Salvador, Change Begins From the Ground Up

La Colectiva serves to protect girls and women from gender-based violence

Women at a feminist school organized by La Colectiva in San Salvador. Photos: Courtesy of the author.

“In this house, we want a life that is free of violence against women,” reads a spray-painted message on the walls of Suchitoto, a small town in El Salvador’s Cuscatlan Department. The street art is hard to miss; not for the graceful hummingbird that accompanies it or the fact that it’s almost everywhere in town, but for its transgression.

El Salvador is a country where 79% of recorded sexual violence cases this year have involved girls younger than 19, abortion is strictly criminalized, and one in three pregnancies belongs to a teen girl. It is one of the deadliest countries in the world; femicide rates rank high according to international standards and a considerable number of girls die by suicide to escape violence.

Violence against women in El Salvador comes in many forms and it’s not always direct.

The urgent declaration on the walls of Suchitoto contrasts sharply with the town’s soft colonial curves. More declarations can be seen leading up to the premises of La Colectiva Feminista, a grassroots women’s rights organization that works directly with women in…