Following is a statement by the Costa Rican women’s advocacy organization, Cefemina, in response to the kidnapping this week of a Costa Rican university student who was in Guatemala to join in a memorial of the 41 girls whose lives were lost in a fire in March.

“On Monday, May 15, 2017, the 23-year-old Costa Rican woman, Shanon Moreno Castro, was kidnapped in Guatemala City by four heavily armed men dressed in civilian clothes. They violently forced her into a pickup truck with tinted windows, then beat her and raped her.

On Tuesday, May 16, she appeared alive in a hospital in Cobán where she is now giving her testimony to officials.

The young Costa Rican was active in the solidarity movement in the wake of a fire in downtown Guatemala in which many girls were burned alive on March 8 at the state-owned orphanage, Hogar Seguro Virgen de la Asunción.

The abduction, disappearance and torture of women is a recurrent pattern in Guatemala, which the Inter-American Court of Human Rights associates with many of the femicides committed in this country, and the lack of investigation and the impunity surrounding them has led to two international condemnations against the country.

Action is required to protect the life of Shanon Moreno Castro. The perpetrators of crimes committed against her should not remain unpunished. The lack of punishment causes such acts to continue to recur.

We demand the government of Guatemala

– Ensure the safety of this young Costa Rican

– Investigate and prosecute the acts against her as attempted femicide

– Identify and punish the authors of the crime

– Investigate systematic violence against women’s rights defenders

We request the government of Costa Rica

– Take the necessary steps to support in every possible way the safety of this young woman and her recovery

– Make the necessary efforts to ensure that these attacks are adequately investigated and punished

We must keep our solidarity more alive than ever. And demand justice for girls burned in state orphanage, and justice for women’s and girls’ rights defenders.

Cobán is the capital of the department of Alta Verapaz in central Guatemala. It also serves as the administrative center for the surrounding Cobán municipality. It is located 219 km from Guatemala City, according to information on Wikipedia. Cobán, at an altitude of 1320 m above sea level, is located at the center of a major coffee-growing area.