These Are the Stories of Teachers Who Resist Violence in Northern Paraguay
These Are the Stories of Teachers Who Resist Violence in Northern Paraguay
Translation posted 2 November 2016 11:57 GMT
In many communities in Concepción, one of the poorest departments in Paraguay, using a helmet is considered suspicious. For teachers and students who need to get to schools, especially in rural areas, motorcycles are as necessary to their education as pencils and notebooks. But in Concepción they can't use a helmet. People say only hit men use helmets.
In towns like Yby Yaú or Arroyito, about 350 kilometers north of the country´s capital Asunción, it is common to see uniformed children going to schools on motorcycles without protection. But this is only one of the many risks they face.
In August this year, a Paraguayan member of congress suggested napalm attacking the north of the country to rid it of the Paraguayan People´s Party (EPP), an armed criminal group accused of kidnappings, attacks and deaths. Two months earlier, another member of congress and the Senate Human Rights commission had suggested something similar: bomb the area even if “innocent people must die” in the process.
What legislators fail to mention is that the violence associated with the north today goes hand in hand with another characteristic of departments like Concepción: a decades-long, systematic abandonment by the state.
More:
https://globalvoices.org/2016/11/02/these-are-the-stories-of-teachers-who-resist-violence-in-northern-paraguay/
