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Peru - Quechua Indigenous Woman Leads Congress Education Committee - Self-Educated - Champions
Non-Discrimination & Rights in Education in Peru
By Ángel Páez
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And she is clear on what she plans to do in the committee:
work to democratise the country's educational system, which, she says,
discriminates against and excludes native people -- something she has
experienced firsthand.
In her colourful traditional dress, Supa moves comfortably
around the legislative palace in the historical centre of
However, Supa, who belongs to the Peruvian Nationalist
Party (PNP), has faced criticism from legislators of the governing APRA party
and the Alliance for the Future, made up of supporters of former president
Alberto Fujmori (1990-2000), who is serving lengthy sentences on multiple
charges of corruption and human rights abuses.
Her detractors argue that because of her lack of formal
education, she is not qualified to head a committee that plays a key role in
determining the direction of educational policy.
"Who criticises me? The 'doctores' (roughly, 'the
PhDs') who have already presided over the committee and did not do a thing for
the people I represent, who have historically been marginalised," she told
IPS in an interview in the chamber where the committee meets.
"I am a social activist who fights for the rights of
poor campesinos, and you don't get that degree at a university," she said.
The lawmaker was born 52 years ago in the rural community
of Huallococha in the
From a young age she suffered humiliation and abuse at the
hands of the powerful elites. Her family worked for a local landowner whose
mistreatment of local peasants included rapes of women.
"I didn't become a rebel in a political party,"
she said. "I have experienced marginalisation in the flesh, for the simple
fact that I am a poor, Quechua-speaking campesina woman.
"For people like me, education is prohibited. I have
made it to Congress because of the votes of my (indigenous) brothers and
sisters, and it is them I represent," Supa said.
In this South American country with an overall literacy
rate of 96 percent among men and 89 percent among women, 31 percent of
Quechua-speaking rural women are illiterate, 38 percent have some years of
primary schooling, 23 percent have made it to secondary school, and just under
three percent have gone on to the university.
Pro-Fujimori legislator Martha Hildebrandt, who is a
linguist by training and a former chair of the education committee, disparaged
Supa's election to preside over the committee as "inappropriate,"
while Mauricio Mulder of the ruling party said "If there's one thing she
doesn't know about, it's education."
"I am self-educated, and I say that with pride,"
Supa responded.
APRA legislator Wilmer Calderón, who has a doctorate in
education, commented to IPS that Supa's election as chair of the committee was
an "act of demagoguery" that gave a glimpse of what a possible PNP
government would look like, "giving important positions to people without
the necessary qualifications.
"I am also a Quechua-speaker, and I was born in the
(central) sierra of Ancash," he said. "But that doesn't give me the
qualifications I need; a rigorous education is also necessary.
"Exclusion isn't fought by putting representatives of
the marginalised in key positions like the education committee, but rather
people who are qualified to tackle the challenges facing Peru's educational
system," Calderón said.
In this multiethnic country, Amerindians account for an
estimated 39 percent of the population of nearly 30 million.
The main
indigenous groups are Quechua and Aymara people from the highlands, while a
relatively small proportion of native peoples are distributed in several dozen
lowland groups. Some 78 percent of native people in
"Mestizos" or people of mixed ethnic heritage
represent roughly 35 percent of the population; an estimated 15 percent of the
population is of European descent; and there are small black and Asian
minorities.
Referring to the criticism, Supa said "I detect a
certain racism in their words. That's how they always talk to us: 'You people
are Indians, you aren't capable of doing anything.' No, 'doctores', now it's
our turn. And you will see the results for yourselves."
The oldest of the 14 children of Eufrasio Supa and Elena
Huamán, Supa was basically raised by her maternal grandparents, to whom she
refers as her parents. And no one has to describe to her how the peasants in
her highlands region work practically around the clock to eke out a living.
"A campesino's day starts at 4:00 in the morning and
ends at 9:00 at night," she said. "As a girl, I worked in the fields
and tended the livestock."
By her teenage years, she was helping organise people in
her community to stand up to the mistreatment of the landowners and the local
authorities who were accomplices in the abuses, which she herself experienced,
including the 1965 murder of her grandfather for defending campesino rights.
She later worked as a domestic in towns in her home
province, and in
On her return from the capital, she began gathering with
other local women, to organise protests and set up soup kitchens for children.
In the late 1980s, she headed the Micaela Bastidas
Committee of Anta, and in 1991 she became organisational secretary of the Anta
Women's Federation (FEMCA).
"When I was a leader of the FEMCA, we organised to
teach women and children to read and write in Quechua, offered workshops on
dangerous agricultural chemicals, and taught people the benefits of traditional
medicine," she said.
With her enthusiasm and energy, Supa soon became well-known
as a social activist and leader in the entire department (state) of
Fujimori also attended the Conference, "to explain his
plan to supposedly pull campesina women out of poverty and ignorance, through
family planning. Everyone applauded.
"He didn't mention, however, that the method he would
use was forced sterilisation," Supa said.
The roughly 2,000 victims of that programme included one of
Supa's daughters. The activist organised the women and launched an all-out
offensive against the Fujimori regime and the forced sterilisations.
In 2009, the public prosecutor's office shelved a lawsuit
against three former health ministers, who under Fujimori implemented the plan,
which coerced and tricked poor indigenous women into being sterilised.
But Supa said she will continue fighting for justice in the
case. "The Inter-American Court of Human Rights handed down a ruling
calling on the Peruvian state to bring to justice those responsible for the
crime that affected my fellow campesinas, and I will carry on with this, to see
that justice is done," she said.
In 2006 she was elected to Congress for the PNP, whose
leader, Ollanta Humala, won the largest number of votes in the first round of
elections that year, but lost in the runoff to current President Alan García.
Last year, pro-Fujimori legislator Alejandro Aguinaga, one
of those accused of running the mass sterilisation campaign, was elected vice
president of Congress.
"When he walks by he doesn't look at me, he turns his
face away, embarrassed," Supa said. "I feel indignant that he forms
part of the leadership of Congress. I'll make him pay for his responsibility.
He caused harm to thousands of women."
Supa had some good news to share. Her biography,
"Hilos de mi vida", which was originally published in Spanish to
little fanfare in 2001, in a small print run in Cuzco, will come out again this
year in a new Spanish-language international edition, propelled by the success
of the German and English ("Threads of My Life: The Testimony of Hilaria
Supa Huaman, a Rural Quechua Woman") editions, which were published in
2005 and 2006, respectively.
"I've been told that my book is taught in
schools" in