WUNRN
MEXICO: Native Women Mobilise for
Their Rights
By Diego Cevallos
MEXICO CITY, August 29, 2008 (IPS) - If the Mexican
government has not addressed the demands of indigenous women in the southern
state of Oaxaca by the end of the first week of September, 10,000 native women
will travel to the capital to directly pressure President Felipe Calderón.
"We are fed up," said one of the leading activists.
"We have organised ourselves, and we are tired of being
strung along and of being excluded," Leticia Huerta, an indigenous woman
who leads the non-governmental Coordinadora Estatal de los Pueblos de Oaxaca
(State Coordinator of the Peoples of Oaxaca), told IPS.
Oaxaca is one of Mexico’s poorest states and one of the
districts with the highest proportion of indigenous people.
Among the demands set forth by the native women, 5,000 of
whom held a protest march Wednesday in Oaxaca, the state capital, are the
construction of a women’s hospital in a rural area, medical posts throughout
the region and the creation of an air ambulance service.
They are also calling for the construction of a bridge in a
village that has been cut off for 12 years, a housing programme using local
materials, and policies that would guarantee women’s social and political
rights.
Huerta said the Coordinadora has been working for women’s
rights for 17 years in Oaxaca, where 418 of the 570 municipalities are governed
by indigenous "uses and customs."
The women’s demands and the announced march to the capital
"are the consequence of these years of work, which have raised our
consciousness," she said.
According to Huerta, more than 10,000 women from 200
villages and towns in Oaxaca form part of her organisation, "which has no
ties to any political party."
Delegates in Oaxaca from the governmental Commission for the
Defence of Indigenous Peoples promised the women Wednesday that within the next
10 days they would draw up a plan to address their demands.
"We will make a 10-day halt in our activities, but we
won't wait any longer than that, and if they fail to live up to their promise
we will go to Mexico City in buses or any way we can, to demand a meeting with
the president," said Huerta.
Nearly 60 percent of the population of Oaxaca lives in rural
villages of less than 2,000 people.
In most of the villages, the local authorities are elected
in traditional native community assemblies, without the participation of
political parties.
In many of the villages, women are not allowed to seek
public office, and under the local "uses and customs" many are not
even able to study.
Studies by the National Women’s Institute, a government
agency, show that the sale of girls into marriage is a continued practice among
indigenous communities in poor southern states like Oaxaca and the neighbouring
Chiapas. Many young girls are thus abruptly separated from their families, in
exchange for a cash payment, or even just a crate of soft drinks or beer.
"Our rights are subjugated and the authorities and many
men in our communities do not want to recognise them," said the activist.
In November 2007, an indigenous accountant, Eufrosina Cruz,
was not allowed to run for mayor of Santa María Quiegolani, a village of 800
Zapoteca people in the mountains of Oaxaca.
When she was nominated and voted for by some of the members
of the all-male village assembly, the leaders of the assembly stopped the
voting and tore up the ballots.
Cruz turned to the governmental National Human Rights
Commission and received support from political parties and members of Congress,
who called on Oaxaca state legislators to carry out legal reforms to ensure
that traditional uses and customs were not used as a pretext for denying basic
human rights guaranteed by the constitution.
"I’m not against uses and customs, only against abuses
and customs. In this state there are 82 municipalities where women have no
rights within their communities, and therefore they can’t even express their
opinions in assemblies, let alone vote or be voted for," she told IPS
earlier this year.
Cruz was provided with police protection after she received
death threats from men in her community.
Another case of violence against indigenous women in Oaxaca
occurred in April, when two young community radio station reporters,
22-year-old Felicitas Martínez and 24-year-old Teresa Bautista, were gunned
down on a rural road.
In Oaxaca and Chiapas, the poverty level is similar to that
of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, according to United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP) studies.
In 2006, non-governmental organisations and community groups
in Oaxaca came together in a popular uprising against Governor Ulises Ruiz of
the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which has governed the state since
the 1920s.
The women represented by the Coordinadora Estatal de los
Pueblos de Oaxaca have now presented their demands directly to the Calderón
administration, because they have no confidence in Ruiz, who remains in his
post despite numerous accusations of human rights violations, including
murders.
Indigenous women are the most vulnerable group among the
native peoples of Mexico, who are variously estimated to make up between 12 and
30 percent of the country’s 104 million people. Their life expectancy is 71.5
years, compared to 76 years for indigenous men.
Illiteracy stands at 32 percent among indigenous women,
compared to 18 percent for men. And nearly 46 percent of indigenous women have
not completed primary school, while a mere 8.9 percent have completed middle
school (lower secondary school).
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