In a region where defending land and the environment can cost lives, women are leading a fearless struggle in territories threatened by extractivism and violence. At a meeting during COP16, three women defenders from Brazil, Argentina and Ecuador shared their challenges and strategies for weaving resistance and keep fighting.
For centuries, Latin America has suffered from the indiscriminate exploitation of its natural resources. Those who seek to protect territories and the environment are seen as an obstacle by large corporations and their allies within political power. In their efforts, defenders face threats, criminalisation, non-lethal attacks and assassinations.
Women defenders also face specific challenges and risks simply because they are women.
Carolina de Moura Campos, Rocío Julián and Ana Lucía Namicela Guaya, women defenders from Brazil, Argentina and Ecuador respectively, met during a break in the COP16 workshop ‘Towards a regional agenda for women defenders of land and territory’. In this moment of dialogue and close listening, they discussed similar struggles and common strategies.
Together, they shared their experiences of the impacts of extractivism in their territories and how, despite the many challenges, they continue to defend their communities, land and nature.
Which problems do you face in your territories in relation to the defence of the land and the environment?
Carolina: Where I live, in Minas Gerais, Brazil, we have serious problems with iron ore mining. We face all the effects that these extractivist and patriarchal projects cause us, such as pollution of the territory, water sources, air and soil. And we face violence, especially against women's bodies, and the persecution of defenders. We continue to fight, but every day with more and more difficulties.
Ana Lucía: In Ecuador, we are facing a lot of problems due to the various extractivisms. For example, recently, the mining cadastre in our country was closed, but on 23 October we discovered it had been reopened. We are very concerned about this, because it means that more peasant and indigenous territories will be concessioned to mining transnationals. The most alarming thing is that, as our compañeras are in these territories, criminalisation, repression and persecution will increase considerably.
Rocío: I am from Jujuy, a province in the north of Argentina, located in the arid region of the puna, where water is a scarce resource. These areas, where the sun beats down hard and the cold is harsh, are full of minerals such as gold, silver, copper and lithium. The main problem is mining extractivism, which began many years ago with the arrival of the colonisers and has been on the rise. In Jujuy live more than 300 communities keeping their ancestral practices, like my family, in territories that today are being threatened by mining projects that could destroy more than 60% of the provincial surface.
Last year, the local constitution was modified to ensure a free path for extractivist projects. Today, these mining projects are being planned over our homes, over our lives. Mining does not respect indigenous lives, it does not respect protected areas, biosphere reserves or endangered species. In short, it respects nothing. As a consequence, our ancestral ways of life and the species that inhabit these territories are endangered.
In your efforts, what are the impacts or particular obstacles you face just because you are women defenders?
Carolina: It is clear that we women suffer differentiated impacts due to patriarchal extractivism. In many cases, our work overload is intensified, especially in polluted places, where diseases are more common, or where access to water, a vital resource for our homes and communities, is increasingly difficult. This overload is daunting.
In addition, we face the challenge of being heard. How many times have we been in meetings with authorities or companies, presenting our problems, and we are not listened to? On the other hand, when men speak, they are given much more attention.
So, not only do we have to fight against the work overload, but also against the double (or triple) effort to be listened to and respected. There is also the matter of economic autonomy. We are so overburdened with care work that we lack the time and energy to generate our own income and maintain our financial independence.
Rocio: Violence can never be separated from women's bodies. What our territories suffer, women's bodies also suffer.
The areas I am talking about are territories that have been intentionally abandoned by the State, where human rights are systematically violated: we consume contaminated water, we lack access to security and education, among other things. In addition to all this, women's bodies are subjected to violence imposed by mining companies, from persecution to pollution. For example, climate change aggravates drought, and mining companies take away the water we need. As a result, we have to drive our animals further away to graze in order to find food, an additional burden that falls directly on women's bodies.
In addition to the ‘triple-violences’ Carolina mentioned, there is the fact of being indigenous women, having a racialised body, and defending an ancestral way of life that fights for survival against mining.
Ana Lucía: The many forms of poverty and violence that we suffer unfortunately have a woman's face. We have uncaring governments that do not allocate the necessary resources to prevent and eradicate violence, nor to guarantee women's fundamental rights. In addition to the violence and inequalities that have already been mentioned, rural women face a lack of access to essential basic services, such as education and food, despite the fact that we are the ones who guarantee food sovereignty.
And when it comes to resistance, we are the ones who are on the frontline, the ones who face criminalisation, repression and institutional violence. We are alert to the actions of governments and corporations, reaffirming that, if necessary, we will defend our territories, even at the cost of our lives.
What strategies do you adopt within your organisations, among women defenders, to overcome the struggle and keep going on?
Carolina: We are trying to create spaces of complicity, of weaving mutual support. We are politicising self-care, understanding that taking care of ourselves is also a form of resistance.
We recently built a health centre in a rural area, and there the women wrote: ‘taking care of our health is a way of fighting’. So we are following this path, we are trying to study about medicinal plants, to learn how to treat illnesses in the communities, because we understand that sick bodies cannot resist the powerful enemies we are facing. We also need to find spaces to laugh, and to keep the joy. We don't just fight, we also seek to maintain hope and happiness in the process, because that is fundamental to keep pushing forward.
Rocio: One of the most important strategies for us is spiritual strengthening. Everything we have lived through and what we continue to face every day hurts us, and sometimes we feel that the light is fading. That is why we seek to share spirituality, to share moments, a space to heal, to mourn and also to celebrate our resilience. We know that healing our emotions is as important as fighting against the injustices that affect us. We often say to ourselves: ‘We haven't cried enough yet’.
Ana Lucía: Given the injustices that we experience in our territories, what we have done and continue to do is to keep weaving ourselves together, strengthening us. Solidarity must always be present. We have made progress in training processes, so that we are not easy targets for misleading extractivist actors. When extractivism arrives, it does so with false promises, with strategies to divide us, to rob us of our peace. But education gives us the tools to be prepared, to resist these attempts to destabilise and divide us. Education and training are our weapons to strengthen our unity and to stand firm in the face of the attacks of the state and corporations.
Their commitment is to life and territory
Despite the threats, these women remain determined in their commitment to defend their territories, their communities, mother earth and their livelihoods. Carolina closes the dialogue with a powerful idea that her organisation keeps in mind: ‘Even if they kill us and cause us suffering, women will not stop giving birth. To give birth not only to children, but also to life, solidarity and hope’.