Two military officers have been sentenced to prison for sexually enslaving Guatemalan women in the '80s.

On Feb. 26, Friday, a court in Guatemala convicted a retired army officer and a former paramilitary for the sexual slavery of 15 Mayan Q'eqchi' women during the country's civil war period, the Guardian reported.

Lieutenant Colonel Esteelmer Reyes Girón will be jailed for 120 years for crimes against humanity and for the murder of 20-year-old Dominga Cuc Co and her two daughters, the news outlet wrote. Girón is the former commander of the Sepur Zarco base, according to Reuters.

Former military commissioner Heriberto Valdez Asij was sentenced to 240 years for his crimes against humanity and for having a hand in the forced disappearance of seven of the victims' husbands, the Guardian further reported.

The defendants both denied their crimes, with their lawyers saying that the two will appeal, Reuters noted.

"(It) is the first time a national court has recognized and established state troops were responsible for subjecting women, the majority indigenous women in this case, to sexual slavery and exploitation and that sexual violence was used as a weapon of war," said Guatemala lawyer Paula Barrios, who is involved in the case's proceedings, as quoted by the news outlet.

Barrios told Reuters "this ruling sets a very important example and precedent for criminal proceedings and convictions involving sexual violence in conflict that's not only relevant for Guatemala but other countries like Colombia in armed conflict."

Testament

The Guatemalan court heard recorded and live testimony from the 11 surviving Mayan victims, whose ages now range in the seventies and eighties, Reuters reported. According to the women, they were raped at the base and forced to clean, cook and wash for the soldiers. One was even gang raped by soldiers near a river where she did her laundry. Her young son witnessed the whole ordeal.

About 250,000 people were killed and 45,000 have disappeared during Guatemala's civil war, which lasted from 1960 to 1996, Reuters noted. Soldiers killed and captured more than a dozen men in Sepur Zarco village. Plenty of these victims, who campaigned for land rights, were accused by the army of colluding with rebels. These men's wives were the ones forced into sexual slavery.

Compensation

The women will be given compensation for their harrowing six-year experience as sexual slaves, the Guardian wrote. Their lawyers will "seek roughly $3 million in damages, access to health care, a school and land titles during a hearing on reparations" scheduled on March 2, Reuters added.