The Mirabel Sisters (1920s/30s – 1960) Run through plagiarism check
On a chilly December day in 1999, the United Nations voted to designate November 24 as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Every year, countries all over the planet mark the date in a universal affirmation of women’s right to lead lives unmarked by violence or harm. But few outside the Dominican Republic realize that November 24 commermorates the Mirabal sisters, three political activists who were assassinated in 1960.
Patria, Minerva, and Maria Teresa Mirabal grew up in a country in the grip of a tyrannical dictator who had seized power in 1930: Rafael Trujillo, a military strongman who was as murderous as he was megalomaniacal. He slaughtered political opponents, killed thousands at the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and garlanded himself with honors, nicknaming himself El Padre de la Patria Nueva (“Father of the Nation” in Spanish) and renaming the capital city Ciudad Trujillo (“Trujillo City”) and the country’s highest peak Pico Trujillo (“Trujillo Peak”). And he was pretty much…show more content… The Mirabal sisters were some of the strongest voices of resistance to his regime. The girls were born into a middle class family in the El Cibao region of the Caribbean island, and were only young women when they had their first deeply unpleasant run-in with Trujillo. The despot was infamous for his proclivity for young girls, and would routinely send invitations to whichever woman caught his eye—requests that were never, of course, declined for fear of reprisal. The Mirabal family was invited to one such soiree, where Minerva apparently slapped Trujillo as he made his move. In retaliation, Trujillo ruined the Mirabal family—imprisoning the sisters’ father (he died shortly after release), harassing the rest of the family, and even barring Minerva from enrolling in university until she delivered a public speech praising
