The War on Indigenous Women

[Judi Lynn]

FEBRUARY 5, 2020

Confronting violence

BY LAURA CARLSEN

When four thousand women from around the world met in a Zapatista community to find ways to end violence against women, we knew what we were up against. Many, if not most, brought with them the scars of gender violence. We also knew we were meeting at a critical and contradictory point in the history of women’s movements–a point when an all-time high in public attention and mobilization coincides with a rise in the violence the movements aim to stop.

The second gathering of “Women Who Struggle” faced two big questions: how do we take personal pain and forge it into collective action, and what do we need to be doing differently to reduce a form of violence that has proved to be not only intransigent, but resurgent?

There was no real program or set of issues defined beforehand, which made for a loose-knit and sometimes chaotic situation. The first day, scores of women stood up to a mike on a wooden platform to describe the abuses they’d suffered, and the paths they built, collectively, to free and heal themselves. Their stories demonstrated the degree to which violence against girls and women permeates society and how it has been normalized through socially accepted practices that isolate the victim and her pain. Each woman who spoke through her tears was met with a cry of “you are not alone!” That’s an important first step.

The second day participants broke into groups to discuss strategies to deal with the frustrating truth that after decades of identifying, legislating, institutionalizing and organizing around violence against women, we are no closer to eradicating it. In most of our countries, femicides—the murder of a woman for being a woman—have gone up. In El Salvador, murders of women more than doubled between 2013 and 2017, with Honduras and Guatemala close behind. Mexico faces an epidemic in violence against women. The UN reports that nine women are killed every day, and the Mexican Institute of Statistics and Geography found that 44% of women have suffered violence from a partner and 66% have experienced some form of violence.

More:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/02/05/the-war-on-indigenous-women/

[abqtommy]

1. I think you can rightfully add Canada to your list of countries with the worst problems in this.

Thanks for this sad but informative op.

[2naSalit]

2. This will only change when women have power.

Men will always protect their ability to control women for their own benefit.

[niyad]

3. Thank you so much for sharing this incredibly important, and extremely depressing and enraging,,

information.

[Cinnamonspice]

4. I think I might write Kamala and ask what she can do.

Surely she has some influence or knows of ways to help through US Policy.