Indigenous women from five different collectives said they were concerned about the rise of organized crime in their territories, so they urgently called for the strengthening of the social fabric to eradicate this scourge from their communities.
In the framework of the Sixth Assembly of the Movement of Women in Defense of Mother Earth and Our Territories, dozens of Chiapas women from different indigenous peoples with diverse languages, gathered to analyze the context in which Chiapas is living and the threats to their communities.
From Tonalá, on the coast of Chiapas, where they met last weekend, the women of Chiapas, from the Zoque, Tsotsil, Tseltal, Ch’ol and Costa regions, gathered to reflect on what is happening in their different places of origin.
VI Assembly of the Women’s Movement in Defense of Mother Earth and Our Territories (Movimiento de Mujeres en Defensa de la Madre Tierra y Nuestros Territorios)
Tonalá, Chiapas, Mexico.
September 14, 2024
To Civil Society
To the Struggles and Resistance
To Women’s Organizations, Networks and Collectives and International Organizations
To Human Rights Organizations
Women of Chiapas, from the Zoque, Tsotsil, Tseltal, Ch’ol and Costa regions, we gathered to analyze, reflect, share, learn, heal collectively and share our common word:
In our coastal region, we women expressed our concerns about the context of violence and insecurity that we are living in our state. We also condemn the dispossession of land and territory, the violation of society due to the construction of the Transisthmian Train in our territory. We also denounce the abuses in the cost of electricity bills, harassment, power outages, and constant blackouts that destroy our appliances.
We from the Highlands Region have noticed that from March to September of this year, the situation regarding organized crime has become increasingly worse in the territories of Chenalhó, Pantheló and extending to Chalchihuitán. This situation is spreading like a disease.
Armed confrontations, detonations and bombs, as well as the burning of houses have provoked forced displacements. Where our plots of land used to be, today there is only a smell of death, the vultures fly over the bodies that we cannot recover, we can no longer go to our plots of land, this situation generates a lot of fear and makes it impossible for us to go to work in our fields. Faced with the lack of food, we have to buy it at very high prices.
Families are left with no possibility of communication, even with the community authorities. We women are the most affected because our rights and our dignity are violated. We can no longer live in peace; living under constant threat has emotional, mental, physical and spiritual consequences. The multiple violations perpetrated against our bodies, such as rape, prevent us from moving freely in our territories. We live in fear that our sons, brothers, husbands, and children will be recruited and kidnapped.
Families are left with no possibility of communication, even with the community authorities. We women are the most affected because our rights and dignity are violated. We can no longer live in peace; living under constant threat has emotional, mental, physical and spiritual consequences. The multiple violations perpetrated against our bodies, such as rape, prevent us from moving freely in our territories. We live in fear that our sons, brothers, husbands, and children will be recruited and kidnapped.
The women of the Northern Selva and Zoque Region are concerned about the disappearances of people, the imprisonment of innocent people, the dispossession of land from native peoples due to mega-projects of death such as the so-called Mayan Train, ecocides, African palm monocultures and the fragmentation of our territories, the loss of knowledge and the devaluation of herbal medicine, as well as the loss of food sovereignty.
All of the above affects us greatly and mainly women in our health, skin and colon cancer has increased, as well as fibroids and cysts. We also have fear, despair, sadness, insomnia, uncertainty and anxiety.
We young women from different regions are concerned about the increase in violence in our communities, the increase in drug addiction and the rise of organized crime.
We feel insecure, worried and sad because this situation is overtaking us and affecting all our rights.
In the last six months all regions have seen an exponential increase in organized crime. The increase in drug use among young people, the co-optation of both by criminal organizations, the increase in human trafficking, sexual exploitation, kidnappings, disappearances, executions and the flyovers of drones has become a daily occurrence. We have noticed that people from other states participate in the confrontations and their bodies add to the number of unidentified persons.
Faced with all of this, it is necessary and urgent to strengthen the organization of the community social fabric, an organization that starts from the local, collective, community level to articulate ourselves in broader networks so that together we can face the situations of displacement, death and destruction.
We propose to generate risk analysis and security protocols, as well as collective healing work that will allow us to stay strong, healthy and happy. We propose to organize ourselves as a society and demand our right to security and peace.
Recovering the dynamics of the cultivation of seasonal food, respecting the cycles and the capacity of the land for the establishment of crops with native seeds.
As women and mothers we want to provide our daughters and sons with a life free of violence and care for their bodies, emotions and culture.
We want a world without fear where we can sow in our plots, enjoy the fruits of the earth and our work, where young women and girls grow up free, healthy, with opportunities and proud of their identity. We hope to have a dignified life, a happy life, a life free of violence, where we go out without fear and we hope that future generations will think critically and constructively. Our hope is that bad people realize that they are doing us harm and that they respect our lives.
We call for the conflicts to stop and for us to live with peace of mind. We invite more women to join our struggles to reclaim our violence-free society where peace, justice and dignity thrive.
We demand respect for our organized communities, our resistance and our autonomy.
We call on the people in general, the youth, to awaken our consciousness and denounce the outrages and corruption by the authorities, we also make a call to continue to unite from the farthest corner of the world.
Tierra Madre y territorio somos una. Juntas y organizadas venceremos
Atentamente:
Red de Mujeres de la Costa en Rebeldía, Zona Costa
Colectivo Defensoras de Nasakobajk (Defensoras de la Madre Tierra), Zona Zoque
Colectivo Tsijilba Bij (Nuevo Camino), Zona Selva Ch’ol y Tseltal
Colectivo Nichim Antsetik (Flor de Mujeres), Zona Altos Tseltal
Colectivo Antsetik Ts’unun (Mujeres Colibrí), Zona Altos
Original text by Isaín Mandujano in Chiapas Paralelo on September 16th, 2024.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.