Contact:  Rick Peterson, Manager of News Services, 920/832-6590
For Immediate Release                                                         
Feb. 22, 2000                    

Rape as Political Persecution Examined by Lawrence University
Anthropologist  


     APPLETON, WIS. -- A Lawrence University anthropologist discusses
the political ramifications of the 1980s state-sponsored violence on
Guatemalan women -- particularly rape by government soldiers -- in a
Lawrence Mortar Board lecture.
     Julie Hastings, assistant professor of anthropology, presents
"Little to Gain, Much to Lose:  Guatemalan Testimonials of
State-Sponsored Rape" Wednesday, March 1 at 4:30 p.m. in Main Hall Room
109.  The address is free and open to the public.
     Based on her two years of fieldwork with communities of indigenous
Guatemalans living in Guatemala, Mexico and Los Angeles, Hastings will
examine community views toward rape and the political ramifications
faced by Guatemalan women for publicly disclosing their rapes.  Unlike
other crimes during Guatemala's civil war of the 1980s such as burning
houses, destroying crops or even killing family members,
government-sanctioned rape was not considered "political persecution."
As a result, Hastings says the Guatemalan survivors who publicly
acknowledge their victimization of rape risk losing their status as
possible refugees and the protection that goes with that designation.
     A specialist in Latin America, Hastings joined the Lawrence
anthropology department in 1999.  She earned her Ph.D. from the
University of Michigan.