WUNRN
BOLIVIA - MORE INDIGENOUS WOMEN
PARTICIPATE IN POLITICS
A Quechua leader at a meeting
on rural women in
- A
growing number of
Though
spread across great distances and representing various realities, many of
these women share a similar history. Most started out leading civil society
organisations and then went on to run for local public office, often overcoming
resistance within their own families.
“The major obstacles (to
accessing a government position) are domestic duties and economic issues,”
Lucinda Villca, a councilwoman from Santiago de Andamarca, a municipality in
the western district of Oruro, told IPS.
Villca is one of four
councilwomen who shared their experiences with IPS during a national meeting of
women leaders from rural local governments held recently in the central
Bolivian city of
“We go out on the fields early
in the morning to help our husbands, tending the crops or taking the cattle out
to pasture. We come home at night and we have to fix supper and make some time
to weave so we can earn extra money for the house,” Villca explains.
“With these obligations,
there’s no time for anything else,” said this Aymara mother of nine who used to
be one of the native leaders of her quinoa and llama farming ayllu (community).
“I now have a greater
responsibility. As a member of the indigenous council my mission was to work
for my community. In this new post I have to work for the future of my
municipality,” she explained, describing an experience she shares with other
indigenous leaders elected to local governments.
“I used to be a housewife. I’m
a Guarani, and like many women in the countryside, I have no regular job. I was
working for a women’s organisation when I was asked to run for office,” Marina
Cuñaendi, a 55-year-old councilwoman from Urubichá, said.
Urubichá is one of
Before being nominated in 2010,
Cuñaendi never thought of holding public office. She planted rice and corn and,
in her “free time,” weaved to support her seven children, along with her
husband.
In Urubichá, she said, women
have no time to organise and are marginalised from political life. She admitted
that she had to consult her husband and children, who were “happy” to support
her and encouraged her.
In San Julián, another
municipality of Santa Cruz, Yolanda Cuellar, a Guarani, had to overcome a third
barrier, that of being “too young,” in the eyes of her community to hold a
municipal position.
She turned 21 a month after
being elected councilwoman in April 2010, on the ticket of Without Fear Movement,
the opposing the party of Movement to Socialism, which governs the municipality
and the country.
“They didn’t trust me because I
was young, and a woman to boot. In our municipality, sexism is very strong. Now
there are four of us women in the council,” this accountant and mother of two
said.
Cuellar
has her husband’s support. “He understands me and tells me not to quit because
people voted for me; he tells me to fight for what I want and not give up just
because somebody doesn’t want me there,” she said.
But these women’s lack of
political experience and the constant discrimination by male peers have not
made the work in the council easier. Being a councilwoman is also very
different from being an indigenous leader.
“There’s a lot of bureaucracy which
slows down any project, but the worst is the lack of support. Our ideas are
ignored and we feel alone. It’s like nobody is interested in doing anything for
young people and women,” Cuellar said.
San Julián’s economy is also
primarily agricultural, and, because one of the country’s leading highways runs
through it, it is complemented with commerce and services activities.
However, 57.9 percent of its
more than 70,000 inhabitants live in extreme poverty.
Under the 2009 constitution and
other applicable laws, women must occupy at least 50 percent of all elected
government positions. To ensure that percentage, candidate lists must be drawn
up by alternating between women and men.
At present, 43 percent of the
mayors and councilpersons in
Lidia Alejandro, a 50-year-old
Aymara councilwoman from Llallagua, a municipality in the mining district of
Potosí, in western
“I became a councilwoman
without knowing a thing about how municipal affairs are run. I’m a teacher, but
holding office is very different. I couldn’t even speak up at a meeting or give
statements to the press,” Alejandro said.
“I had to learn as I went
along,” she admitted. Training workshops also helped her overcome this
limitation.
But training takes time, she
said, and that causes problems with husbands as they reproach women leaders for
neglecting their homes.
Alejandro is troubled at the
failure to attain the goal of bringing the women of her municipality out of
poverty due to a lack of specialists who can design projects to meet their
needs.
Bolivian legislation requires
that part of the annual budget at every government level be allocated to
spending on projects that target the needs of women and other vulnerable
groups. But most of these budget allocations are not spent and the funds are
either returned or transferred to other areas.
“Women have come to us to
complain. ‘How is it that we have four councilwomen and they’re not doing
anything for us?’ they say. We’ve tried to join forces, but the truth is that
we all have our political loyalties,” Cuellar said.
“The challenge is to translate this
legislation into action, into real and concrete participation,” she said.
The U.N. Women’s office’s
‘Semilla’ (seed) programme, a three-year pilot initiative now in its final
year, helps women in rural districts exercise their economic and
political rights.
Loayza said that one of the
programme’s goals was to motivate more women to participate in politics by
showing them the meaningful involvement of women who are already participating.
“Women can now access (public
office), but it’s very hard. It’s a colossal task. The women who have achieved
positions of responsibility in public bodies can bear witness to the problems
they face every day to make their presence felt, and not just occupy
decision-making positions on paper,” Loayza said.
“We’re still at a point where
women have to work hard to really participate,” she concluded.
The programme is being
implemented by the ministry of equal opportunities in 18 rural districts and so
far it has benefited 4,000 women, with nine million dollars in financing from
the United Nations.