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Mirta Macedo

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mirta Macedo (6 July 1939 - 25 July 2012) was an Uruguayan social worker, writer and human rights activist. She is best known for her writing, some of which focus on her time as a political prisoner in Montevideo. Macedo also worked to expose the torture and sexual abuse that she and other women faced in prison.

Biography

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Macedo was born on July 6, 1939, in Treinta y Tres.[1] Growing up in Treinta y Tres, Macedo felt that there were many problems in the city that needed attention.[2] When she was 20, she moved to Montevideo and started studying at the Escuela de Servicio Social.[2] She also joined the Unión de Jóvenes Comunistas.[2] Macedo became a militant communist.[3] She was also involved in Frente Ampilo (Broad Front).[1]

Macedo was arrested by the Órgano Coordinador de Operaciones Antisubversivas [es] (OCOA) in October of 1975.[3] She was taken with a group of prisoners to one of the military prisons.[2] Between 1975 and 1981, Macedo was held as a political prisoner.[4] During her time in prison, she and the others were tortured in various ways.[2] In her book, Tiempos de ida, tiempos de vuelta (2002), she discusses her time as a prisoner.[4] Her 2005 book, Atando los tiempos: Reflexiones sobre las estrategias de sobrevivencia en el Penal de Punta de Rieles, 1976-1981, describes how women coped with surviving in the Punta de Rieles prison.[5][6] In 2011, Macedo, along with three other former prisoners, testified on the television show, Esta boca es mía [es] that they had been sexually assaulted in prison.[7] Macedo and the other women held as political prisoners accused and filed a complaint against more than 100 people in the prisons of rape and sexual abuse.[8][1]

Macedo died on July 24, 2012.[1] The collection of essays, Las Laurencias (2012) compiled by Soledad González Baica and Mariana Risso Fernández, was dedicated to Macedo.[9]

Selected bibliography

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  • De la prisión a la libertad: Reflexiones sobre los efectos sociales de la prisión. Montevideo: Orbe Libros. 2008. ISBN 9789974661424.
  • Atando los tiempos : reflexiones sobre las estrategias de sobrevivencia en el Penal de Punta de Rieles, 1976-1981. Montevideo: Orbe Libros. 2005. ISBN 9789974661165.
  • Tiempos de ida, tiempos de vuelta. Montevideo: Orbe Libros. 2002. ISBN 9789974661059.
  • Un día, una noche-- todos los días. Montevideo: Orbe Libros. 1999. ISBN 9789974661011.

References

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Citations

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  1. ^ a b c d "Adiós a Mirta Macedo". Uypress (in Spanish). 25 July 2012. Archived from the original on 3 February 2019. Retrieved 2019-02-02.
  2. ^ a b c d e Pagola, Florencia. "Cada uno tenía su mujer". Sala de Redacción (in European Spanish). Archived from the original on 12 November 2018. Retrieved 2019-02-02.
  3. ^ a b Sapriza, Graciela (March 2008). "Palabras y silencios sobre el terrorismo de estado" (PDF). Encuentros Latinoamericanos (in Spanish). 2 (2): 83.
  4. ^ a b Forcinito 2019, p. 148.
  5. ^ Rivero, Elizabeth G. (2016). "Gendered Memories and Visual Recollections". In Gómez, Tania; Bolaños-Fabres, Patricia; Hennessy, Christina Mougoyanni (eds.). Gender in Hispanic Literature and Visual Arts. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books. p. 138. ISBN 9781498521208.
  6. ^ Alzugarat, Alfredo. "Atando los tiempos". Espacio Latino (in Spanish). Retrieved 2019-02-03.
  7. ^ Forcinito 2019, p. 154.
  8. ^ Kanopa, Agustín Acevedo (2016-08-25). "Entre "nosotras" y "ellos"". La Diaria (in Spanish). Retrieved 2019-02-03.
  9. ^ Forcinito 2019, p. 157.

Sources

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