ALAI, América Latina en Movimiento
2009-09-24
Mexico
Indigenous women lead human rights fight
Karen Trejo
Before they even turned 18, Eulogia Flores Vázquez and Obtilia Eugenio Manuel were denouncing such abuses as soldiers´ sexual violence against community members and domestic violence.
Both women have received death threats for their human rights work and seen relatives and fellow community members suffer — and even die — for sharing in their cause.
But neither of them has let those events derail their plans to defend human rights for indigenous communities in Mexico´s Guerrero state.
“It´s worth it for the women and girls”
"It wasn´t normal that we were living with the punches from our husbands, fathers and brothers inside our houses," said Flores, 23, when she recounted the March 2005 beginnings of an indigenous women´s group in the Na Savi people, of the Mixteca, in the Montaña region of Guerrero.
Three months later, they formed a group of more than 150 women who attended assemblies with the consent of their fathers and husbands. When they began to denounce family violence, "the men turned against them," said Flores.
In Cochoapa el Grande, the town of some 15,600 people where the group was formed, has the lowest human development index in Mexico, according to the United Nations´ "Municipal Human Development Index in Mexico 2000-2005," a report released in July 2008.
The women who organized the group centered their efforts on improving health care, and lowering the maternal and infant mortality rates, which are three times higher than the national average, according to the United Nations Development Program´s "Human Development Index Report on the Indigenous Peoples of Mexico 2006." The report said 96 percent of the population lacks medical insurance.
The National Population Council, a government agency, says that in 2005, for every 100,000 live births in Mexico, 51 mothers died, a figure that rose to 151 in indigenous communities. The National Nutrition Institute said that the percentage of malnourished Mexican children is close to a third of those living in rural areas, while it is 11 percent in urban areas.
Culture also plays a role, said Flores, noting that many indigenous women give birth to their children at home. "We couldn´t force them to go to the doctor," Flores said.
Their demands for medicine, house calls and assistance for child labor was met by threats from the community doctor and municipal president to close the community´s only health post, if the women kept up.
The women decided, "better to have something, even if it´s bad, than to have nothing," said Flores.
She suffered threats of physical violence, the torching of her house and the kidnapping of her father.
Now, Cochoapa el Grande has a properly staffed medical clinic that is stocked with medicines. It is still missing key equipment such as an ultrasound machine, and an ambulance to transport serious cases to the area´s general hospital, which is three hours away.
"It´s worth it for the women and children," Flores said of her work. "I want to change the custom of abusing women and I want their health to improve. I began the movement for my family. I lived through that pain and I like to work to improve things in my community. I know it´s going to change one day."
“Aid doesn´t reach our communities”
Obtilia Eugenio Manuel, 32, from the Me Phaa community of the Tlapaneca in Barranca de Guadalupe, also in Guerrero, is known as the first woman to take an active role in her community´s public assemblies.
This region is highly militarized by the government because of marijuana and poppy growing and a guerrilla presence. Eugenio Manuel remembers the massacre en El Charco on June 7, 1998, when the army killed 11 indigenous campesinos.
When she was 11, she moved to the town of Ayutla to attend high school, but returned to her community in Barranca de Guadalupe afterward for human rights work. Along with 130 others, including her husband, she founded the Me Phaa Indigenous Organization in 2002, as a vehicle to denounce human rights violations and promote economic development projects for indigenous communities, especially those dedicated to corn, roselle, beans and tropical fruits.
On one typical work day, her baby wrapped in fabric around her back, Eugenio goes to work in the highlands with a few other members of the organization. They document the destruction of one farm and the fruits that were stolen by the army. When she returns home that afternoon, her three other children were waiting for her for lunch. At night, a 60-year-old woman came to her door to report that she and her daughter were raped by soldiers 10 years ago.
No member of the organization is paid or given any sort of bodyguard. In 2005, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights urged Mexico´s government to protect Eugenio and her family, but to no avail.
She and her compañeros have received death threats. Others have actually been killed, tortured, jailed or disappeared for denouncing the forced sterilization of indigenous men by Guerrero health authorities and sexual violence against the women by soldiers, as happened in 2002 to Inés Fernández Ortega, a member of the Tlapaneca people, whose case was admitted in the Inter-American Court.
The most recent attack against indigenous human rights defenders in Ayutla occurred last February. Raúl Lucas Lucía and Manuel Ponce Rosas, Mixtecos and leaders of the Organization for the Future of the Mixteco People, were tortured and killed.
No one was arrested for the killings. According to one witness´ account, both were detained by three armed men who identified themselves as police on Feb. 13. Their bodies appeared on Feb. 20 in the village of Tecoanapa, in Costa Chica. Months before they were killed, both were harassed by the Guerrero state police, according to the Human Rights Center of Montaña Tlachinollan, because they reported the army´s human rights violations in the area.
Eugenio took over the organization´s presidency at that time and was honored by some other civil society groups from the Guerrero area.
"I have a commitment to speak about the problems we have with our detained compañeros, to continue fighting for our communities´ needs: infrastructure, schools, medical care and projects for women, but there´s nothing," Eugenio said. "The aid doesn´t reach our communities. We know there are initiatives, but not for us as indigenous women."
http://www.alainet.org/active/33245
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