"We want a future with dignity and equality for women."

- Jeannette Urquilla

ORGANIZACIÓN DE MUJERES SALVADOREÑAS POR LA PAZ (ORMUSA)

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about

ORMUSA is a leading feminist, non-partisan and non-religious non-profit organization based in San Salvador that is committed to advancing women’s human rights in El Salvador.

El Salvador has one of the highest rates of violent deaths of women in the world. According to the UN in 2018 one woman was killed in a femicide every 24 hours in El Salvador. Often women are killed in a brutal manner, they are shot, their bodies mutilated and tortured solely to inflict pain. Ending a relationship, seeking a divorce or even getting married are all reasons why women are murdered in El Salvador. They are killed because they are women and because the men who carry out these murders know they will probably get away with it. Many femicides are also related to the misogyny violence inherent in gang culture. 67% of Salvadoran women have suffered some form of violence in their lifetime, including sexual assault, intimate partner violence and abuse by family members. Only 6% of victims report abuse to authorities. Impunity for these crimes is widespread.

Formed in the 1980s during the civil war in El Salvador, ORMUSA (Organización de Mujeres Salvadoreñas por la Paz) is a leading feminist, non-partisan and non-religious non-profit organization based in San Salvador that is committed to advancing women’s human rights in El Salvador. Thousands of Salvadoran women have benefitted from ORMUSA’s programs related to ending violence against women and advancing women’s economic and reproductive rights.

ORMUSA helped draft a law that came into effect in 2012 making femicide – the deliberate murder of women just because they are women – a criminal category in El Salvador and establishing special provisions to protect women from gender-based violence. But despite legal protections, 75% of femicide cases end up never being prosecuted. “The law is fine, but the ones who have to implement it are the ones who have to change,” says Silvia Juárez, one of the law’s drafters and a lawyer and activist with ORMUSA. “We still have a lot to do in order to move forward and finally eradicate violence against women.” ORMUSA continues to be one of the few Salvadoran organizations tracking cases of violence against women there.

ORMUSA runs a legal aid center to assist marginalized women who may need legal assistance and psycho-social counseling. It also runs a hotline and conducts numerous training programs and capacity-building workshops on the prevention of gender-based violence, non-discrimination and gender equality. ORMUSA is part of numerous national and regional networks working to end violence and discrimination against women and safeguarding women’s economic and reproductive rights.

Empowering women is key to changing attitudes in El Salvador, which is rife with machismo, and to ending the rampant gender-based violence. With communities and in the maquiladora factories (factories run by foreign companies that export the products out of El Salvador), ORMUSA develops programs on labor rights and women’s economic rights. The organization has advocated for reforms within the country’s pension system to make it more fair and equitable for women.

ORMUSA is a long-standing committed women’s rights organization that needs your support to ensure the safety and well-being of Salvadoran women. Please make a contribution to ORMUSA.

Featured Story

ORMUSA is the only organization that reaches our communities despite the risk of gangs

By: DDA | Dec 8, 2020

I never had the courage to stand up to male decision-makers or in public before; I never expected to become the president of ASOMUSA or become part of the Municipal Council of the Mayor's Office of San Pedro Masahuat.

As a woman I have grown quite a bit. I used to be a very shy woman. I didn't know my rights and how they are violated at every moment. I didn’t know the kinds of violence that can be used against us.

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