lllustration: CONFIDENCIAL.

Maryorit Guevara, Claudia Pineda, and Rosalia Miller have transformed adversity into opportunity, leading projects in defense of human rights.

By Confidencial

HAVANA TIMES — Maryorit Guevara, Claudia Pineda, and Rosalia Miller are separated by thousands of kilometers, but they are united by their Nicaraguan origins, by forced exile or banishment ordered by the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, and by the “need” to help other people—something that, they acknowledge, has become “almost an obsession.”

Their stories are a testament to resilience and social commitment. They represent a group of Nicaraguan women who, despite being far from their country of origin, have turned adversity into an opportunity to continue helping their compatriots.

From Spain, Costa Rica, and the United States—countries that have welcomed the largest numbers of Nicaraguan refugees—these women continue working actively to defend human rights and support their community. Their work has involved not only overcoming the challenges of exile but also extending a hand to others facing situations of vulnerability.

In commemoration of International Women’s Day, CONFIDENCIAL presents three first-person accounts from women who demonstrate that being far from their homeland is no obstacle to continuing to build a more just future. They are proof that, even in adversity, hope remains alive through community work.

Maryorit Guevara and her defense of “the migrant women”

The Nicaraguan Maryorit Guevara has a long career in journalism and feminist activism. In 2018, amid the protests against the Ortega-Murillo regime, she went into exile with her son. Today she lives in Spain, where she is president and founder of the Movement of Migrant Women of Extremadura and of the feminist media outlet La Lupa.

Maryorit Guevara, Nicaraguan journalist and feminist. // Illustration: CONFIDENCIAL.

“I left Nicaragua in an emergency, and when I arrived in Spain I had nowhere to stay. During the first three months, a couple of women supported us by giving us a place to live, but for me that was unsustainable—I felt I was abusing their solidarity. So I looked for a way to enter the Refugee Support Program.

“In the program we ran into many obstacles—much racism, many violations of our rights—and we had nowhere to file complaints. There, we were threatened that we would be expelled from the center if we continued to complain. Seeing that there was no entity where we could report what was happening, the idea arose to create the Movement of Migrant Women of Extremadura “Las Migrantas.”

“Las Migrantas” is an organization that works with migrant and refugee women and their sons and daughters, and it is grounded in feminist principles. We try to be a support network, a place of refuge for women who are arriving and who are going through this process.

“When you work with migrant and refugee women, you see situations of great pain. Women who are suffering labor exploitation, sexual abuse, jobs with salaries of 500 euros to live inside a house working 24 hours a day, women who are threatened with having their children taken away. It has to do with the condition of being a migrant or refugee, especially when they do not have permission to work and reside in Spain.

“The lack of documents exposes women to greater violations of their rights, because they are also threatened at work with being reported as undocumented so they can be deported to their countries.

“Las Migrantas” has existed since 2021, and since 2023 we have had a headquarters here in Merida, the capital of Extremadura. We have three major programs: the first for a life free from gender violence, the second focused on children, and the third related to fair employment.

“We work with women of different nationalities. We have two WhatsApp groups—which function as our online community—with around 600 women: Colombians, Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Hondurans, Moroccans. We also assist an average of one thousand women each year.

“It hasn’t been easy. We have been questioned a lot—for example, why we work only with women, why we do not work with men, why we do not work with native white women. But we defend the intersectional, decolonial, and anti-racist approach we take. In addition, all of us who work here have lived through and share the migrant experience.

“One of the things that makes us most proud of what we do is seeing our children increasingly empowered, with less fear and more ability to reason, speak out, and defend themselves when they face attacks. Also the fact that we started with five women on the board of directors and now we have around 30 members.

“Sometimes entire families arrive at the office because they have nowhere to stay, and we do not have housing resources. But we begin calling people, asking for favors, until other migrant families take them in while they manage to rent an apartment. That community we have created is our main achievement, because that is the essence of what we envisioned when this organization was founded.”

Claudia Pineda: “What is not named does not exist”

Sociologist Claudia Pineda discovered her vocation as a teenager in the 1980s, when she was sent to teach literacy in a rural area of Boaco. Since then she has built a long career in social organizations. In 2021, when the Nicaraguan regime began persecuting her colleagues, she decided to go into exile. Today she lives in Costa Rica, where she directs the Legal Defense, Registry, and Memory Unit for Nicaragua.

Claudia Pineda, Nicaraguan sociologist. // Illustration: CONFIDENCIAL.

“I left Nicaragua because police patrols began visiting my house and I didn’t know why. At first I left for a while to see what was happening. There were already many political prisoners and I did not want to put myself at risk. To safeguard my freedom and continue doing things for Nicaragua, I decided to go into exile. Later came the imprisonments of all those political figures.

“In Costa Rica we received a call from a relative of one of the political prisoners who told us: “Help me, it’s desperate, we can’t do anything. We are inside Nicaragua and we cannot leave because we cannot abandon them.” So we decided to begin a campaign in favor of the release of political prisoners.

“I began working as a volunteer, and a year ago I became the director of the Legal Defense, Registry, and Memory Unit for Nicaragua, whose mission is fundamentally to work for the protection, defense, and promotion of human rights, particularly those of political prisoners.

“The association keeps a record of the human rights violations taking place in Nicaragua. We know we do not have the capacity to document 100% of the violations, but at least we have the capacity to identify new trends in repression, new forms of repression, and to make denunciations before the corresponding organizations.

“We follow up on people who are in prison, their situation and their conditions. We also support former prisoners in the search for justice, accompanying them before international protection systems such as the Inter-American Commission and Court of Human Rights, and the United Nations Human Rights Council and Committee.

“This work is emotionally very challenging. We cannot fully capture all the pain of people who have a missing loved one somewhere in prison. That is one of the hardest parts of this work, but it is also one of the most rewarding in the sense that families tell us: “We feel accompanied by you, and that gives us the courage to keep going.”

“Sometimes dealing with families is hard because, no matter how many things we do, it depends on the political will of a cruel and inhumane regime. So, finding words of comfort and hope is very difficult in the situation faced by people who have relatives in prison.

“There are also moments of joy, such as the release of the 222 political prioners and later the135. Even though they were banished and stripped of their nationality, experiencing that moment was very gratifying. And every time there are releases from prison, because the hardest part of all is the suffering of the families and we know that at that moment they will feel relief. In the end, that is why we are here—to secure their release.

“Our great achievement is having the trust of the families and the possibility of accompanying them in their search for justice. We also have great potential for impact because we possess an important body of information and, when the moment of transition arrives, we will be able to provide evidence so that justice can be served in our country.

“It is not easy to live with the dilemma of denouncing abuses while risking that something might happen to your imprisoned loved one, so we applaud the courage of those who do it. We have verified that through denunciation people who were forcibly disappeared are presented, or prisoners are released. It is the only tool we have; what is not named doesn’t exist.

“Our dream is that a transition to democracy will begin soon and that this transition will include processes to seek truth and justice. We hope, we trust, and we will work for it to happen. When will it happen? It is very difficult to say; it depends on many internal and external factors. What we can do is be prepared to contribute to that search for truth and justice.”

Rosalia Miller: “Dictatorship is not forever”

The Nicaraguan Rosalia Miller has lived much of her life in the United States, where she helped thousands of Hispanic children study in private schools. In 2018 she founded the Nicaragua Freedom Coalition to help Nicaraguans in exile. In 2021 the Ortega-Murillo regime banished her, and in 2023 it stripped her of her nationality. In 2025 she was decorated by King Felipe VI of Spain with the Order of Isabella the Catholic for her social work.

Rosalia Miller, academic and defender of the rights of children and youth. // Illustration: CONFIDENCIAL.

“In 1994 I founded the Latino Student Fund, and since then we have helped more than a thousand children receive an education in private schools in the United States. We advise them, giving workshops on how to prepare their profile for applying to universities. We have had a 98% acceptance rate in US universities, all with scholarships. I have already retired because I must let others spread their wings and fly.

“In the meantime, what I am doing now is working to bring justice and democracy to Nicaragua. In 2018, when that massacre occurred, all the news was coming from Nicaragua and I was in disbelief. I did not understand—and I still do not understand—how supposed leaders could order the killing of young people. My vocation has always been children and youth, and those young people being murdered in my country.

“A person who had been an ambassador in Washington spoke to me and said: “Rosalía, we have to do something.” We joined with two other people and founded the Nicaragua Freedom Coalition. Those people later left Washington because they had assignments in other places in the Western Hemisphere, so it fell to me to lead this.

“We created workshops for Nicaraguans going into exile to explain migration processes, visa issues, to give them the names of lawyers who could help them—everything that was necessary. So many people were already in exile and more kept arriving, feeling alone and without support. So we have been there, ready to provide them with reliable information.

“We have also had connections with the US Congress and with the Organization of American States, where we were accepted as members of civil society. That is very important because with those credentials we can do more advocacy, and I hope that someday it will help change that cruel regime.

“I cannot express how many hours are spent in meetings, advocating and bringing Nicaragua to the forefront of people’s minds here in the United States. I want to highlight that because it is the effort of mine and of many other people. The difference is that I am in Washington, so I do many of these things in person, and it also consumes a lot of emotional and psychological energy.

“After all these years and all this effort, Nicaragua is being talked about. Nicaragua is now on the agenda in the United States, and that was not the case two years ago. The fact that the people I speak with pay attention to us and ask questions is important because they want to know details about what is happening—what is true and what is not.

“I believe that dictatorship is not forever, nothing is forever. And I believe that all these efforts will lead somewhere. I not only feel it, but I see certain movements, certain meetings, where nothing is said explicitly, but you can add things up and know that two plus two equals four. There is movement not only from the United States but also from other countries that care about us and firmly believe in democracy.

“In the United States people are very aware of what is happening in Nicaragua. Even so, there have been years when it was not even mentioned in the news. But there is movement, and we will reach Nicaragua, and I will go to the beach and bathe in that sea, and I will feel the foam of the waves.”

First published in Spanish by Confidencial and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.

Read more from Nicaragua here on Havana Times.