Women within the Indigenous The Seeds of a Movement— Peoples’ Movement of Mexico: Disabled Women and their New Routes for Transforming Power Struggle to Organize By Marusia López Cruz By Janet Price fromfrom Changing Changing Their Their World World 2nd 1st Editionedition Edited by Srilatha Batliwala Scholar Associate, AWID Building Feminist Movements and Organizations 2008 This case study was produced by AWID’s Building Feminist Movements and Organizations (BEFMO) Initiative These publications can be found on the AWID website: www.awid.org Changing their World 1st Edition Contains case studies: Women in the Indigenous Peoples’ Movements of Mexico: New Paths for Transforming Power by Marusia López Cruz Against All Odds: The Building of a Women’s Movement in the Islamic Republic of Iran By Homa Hoodfar The Dalit Women’s Movement in India: Dalit Mahila Samiti By Jahnvi Andharia with the ANANDI Collective Domestic Workers Organizing in the United States By Andrea Cristina Mercado and Ai-jen Poo Challenges Were Many: The One in Nine Campaign, South Africa By Jane Bennett Mothers as Movers and Shakers: The Network of Mother Centres in the Czech Republic By Suranjana Gupta The Demobilization of Women’s Movements: The Case of Palestine By Islah Jad The Piquetera/o Movement of Argentina By Andrea D’Atri and Celeste Escati GROOTS Kenya By Awino Okech The European Romani Women’s Movement—International Roma Women’s Network By Rita Izsak Changing their World 2nd Edition Contains four new case studies: The Seeds of a Movement—Disabled Women and their Struggle to Organize By Janet Price GALANG: A Movement in the Making for the Rights of Poor LBTs in the Philippines By Anne Lim The VAMP/SANGRAM Sex Worker’s Movement in India’s Southwest By the SANGRAM/VAMP team Women Building Peace: The Sudanese Women Empowerment for Peace (SuWEP) in Sudan By Zaynab ElSawi Strengthening Monitoring and Evaluation for Women’s Rights: Twelve Insights for Donors By Srilatha Batliwala Capturing Change in Women’s Realities: A Critical Overview of Current Monitoring and Evaluation Frameworks and Approaches By Srilatha Batliwala and Alexandra Pittman The Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) is an international feminist, membership organization committed to achieving gender equality, sustainable development and women’s human rights. AWID’s mission is to strengthen the voice, impact and influence of women’s rights advocates, organizations and movements internationally to effectively advance the rights of women. Author: Marusia López Cruz Editor: Srilatha Batliwala Designer: Storm. Diseño + Comunicación 2008 This publication may be redistributed non-commercially in any media, unchanged and in whole, with credit given to AWID and the author. Published by AWID, Toronto, Mexico City, Cape Town. This publication is available online at www.awid.org This publication is also available online in French and Spanish. Toronto Office 215 Spadina Ave, Suite 150 Toronto, Ontario M5T 2C7 Canada [email protected] AWID gratefully acknowledges the generous support of Cordaid, Hivos, Irish Aid, Levi Strauss Foundation, MDG3 Fund (Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Oxfam Novib, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). Introduction Women within the Indigenous Peoples’ Movement of Mexico: New Paths for Transforming Power By Marusia López Cruz “We want a road that’s both parallel to the men’s road and one with it because we’re indigenous, too, we women and our male comrades--all of us are indigenous peoples.... That’s the right we were fighting for.... We want our voices, our feelings to be taken into account...because he can’t express the same thing I can... because they’re always the ones who make decisions” —Felícitas Martínez, Coordinator of the National Co- ordinating Committee of Indigenous Women Introduction The alarming conditions of marginalization imposed on indigenous peoples by the state, the cultural practices of some of indigenous peoples that hamper the full exercise of women’s rights, and the opportunities and contributions offered to women by their ethnic heritage, are key aspects of the personal and collective struggles undertaken by indigenous women. Understanding these aspects is fundamental in describing the construction, agenda, and strategies of the women within the indigenous movement in Mexico, particularly the National Coordinating Committee of Indigenous Women (Coordinadora Nacional de Mujeres Indígenas, CNMI). Mexico is a pluriethnic, pluricultural country. According to data provided by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) and the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples (CDI): • The indigenous population numbers 12.7 million people,1 representing 13% of the national population. A total of 6, 011, 202 million people over the age of six speak one of the 62 indigenous languages registered in the country.2 • The states with the largest number of indigenous people are: Oaxaca (2.02 million), Veracruz (1.19 million), Chiapas (1.19), Yucatán (1.18 million), State of Mexico (1.17 million), and Puebla (1.06 million).3 The states with the highest percentage of indigenous people are Yucatán (59%), Oaxaca (48%), Quintana Roo (39%), Chiapas (28.5%), Campeche (27%), Hidalgo (24%), Puebla (19%), Guerrero (17%) and San Luis Potosí and Veracruz (15% each).4 The state, far from recognizing and protecting the rights of indigenous people, has maintained, tolerated, and even promoted xenophobia and the excessive exploitation of this population’s resources and labor, which not only undermines existing cultural diversity, but also puts the identity, sovereignty, and governability of the nation at risk. Socio-economic indexes reflect a high concentration of poverty in indigenous areas; as a matter of fact, 83% of all indigenous municipalities are found in categories of high and very high marginality.5 Furthermore, the extermination policy implemented or covered up by the state itself consists of the following aspects: increasing militarization as a method of social control in the indigenous communities, the dispossession of indigenous territories for the commercial exploitation of natural resources found there, the rejection by authorities of the peoples’ own organizational forms (very few states in the country 1 CDI: http://www.cdi.gob.mx/index.php?id seccion=3 2 INEGI: http://www.inegi.gob.mx/est/contenidos/espanol/rutinas/ept.asp?t=mlen01&s=est&c=5689 3 Patricia Fernández, Juan Enrique García and Diana Esther Ávila, “Estimaciones de la Población Indígena en Mexico,” La Situación Demográfica de Mexico (Mexico, CONAPO, 2002), p.174, http://www.conapo.gob.mx/ publicaciones/2002/13.pdf. 4 Ibid. 5 Instituto Nacional de las Mujeres, “Las mujeres indígenas de Mexico: su contexto socioeconómico, demográfico y de salud,” 2005. http://cedoc.inmujeres.gob.mx/documentos_download/100833.pdf Changing their World: Concepts and Practices of Women’s Movements 1 Introduction effectively recognize the right to autonomy in have been maintained for generations, thus their legal framework), and a lack of educational impeding the full enjoyment of their human policies reflecting the multicultural nature of the rights. Some of these are: nation. Of the sum total of indigenous language 1. A strict, asymmetric sexual division of speakers in the country, women make up 50.77% labor that generates heavy work loads 6 (approximately 3, 052,138 million). As is the case and exploitation at very early ages. One in other sectors of the population of Mexico, the woman expressed this social reality in the historic marginalization and discrimination against following lines: all indigenous people particularly affects women. Despite regional and ethnic differences, in most We have to get up at three or four o’clock cases there are several factors in common: in the morning to make the fire and boil the Extreme poverty affects women in coffee....After that we have to do other jobs many ways. With regards to education, because we have animals to tend like pigs, for example, indigenous women are farther corral animals, chickens and all that. We behind than men; there are now 636,720 have to shell the corn, and after that we have to get the children up so they can eat monolingual women, compared to 371,083 breakfast and go to school. Then we’re men, and more than half of the women who alone in the house and have to sweep and 7 speak an indigenous language are illiterate. clean up. After that we start off for the river With regards to health, the number of to wash clothes for the children and the maternal deaths among indigenous women whole family. We get home late and begin is triple the national average; it is estimated washing the corn for making tortillas, we that 1,400 indigenous women die from such finish grinding and preparing it and then complications every year.8 Another alarming begin to pat out the tortillas. Sometimes situation that highlights their marginalization we’re still making them when our husbands is the malnutrition that affects around 40% of get home. We have to give them something all indigenous women.9 As for their economic to eat. When the children get home we give them their lunch...That’s what we do all day situation, the lack of public policies that long.11 guarantee subsistence and economic autonomy for indigenous women leaves 2. Preference given to males in education them completely vulnerable, especially when (based on the argument that women their husbands or fathers have to migrate. At get married and must take charge this time only 14% of all indigenous women of household work), the exclusion of have access to credit, plus the fact that an women from community spaces and increasingly larger number of indigenous decision-making positions (assemblies, women day workers are not included in any administration of community justice, etc.), 10 public health system. and access to land and resources (only Culture and the so-called “usos y 17% of the population with agrarian and costumbres” (traditional practices and communal property rights are women12).