On September 5, the International Day of Indigenous Women is commemorated with the intention of highlighting and raising awareness among the population about the problems and inequalities they face every day in their contexts.
In Mexico, indigenous peoples and communities face dispossession of their lands by companies; repression, stigmatization and criminalization by the State for exercising their right to freedom of expression and protesting against injustices, as well as political imprisonment and even forced disappearance for carrying out their work as popular communicators and human rights defenders.
In this sense, indigenous women are the ones who are increasingly facing these situations by becoming leaders of their struggles and resisting the capitalist, patriarchal and colonial systems that are introduced in their territories.
According to data from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi), in 2022 it was recorded that almost 20 percent of the total population in Mexico is indigenous. Of this percentage, 51.4 percent corresponded to women, and of this, the age range with the highest concentration was between 10 and 24 years old. In terms of access to education, women who speak an indigenous language do not manage to finish primary school, compared to those who do not speak an indigenous language, who on average manage to complete basic education (https://acortar.link/qZVjwe).
In addition, based on the report Datos que duelen, redes que nos salvan (Facts that hurt, networks that save us), by the Mesoamerican Initiative of Women Human Rights Defenders (IM-Defensoras), around 700 aggressions against women defenders belonging to organizations that defend land and territory, indigenous and/or Afro-descendant communities in Latin America were documented. In Mexico, most of this criminalization and political persecution is directed towards young indigenous women (https://acortar.link/p7IQvI).
Against this backdrop, it is necessary to observe that the dynamics generated against them are part of a system that not only seeks to remove women from leadership and decision-making positions in their organizational processes, but are also based on criminalizing and discriminatory narratives against indigenous women defenders.
Likewise, the processes of access to justice and the protection of their human rights are hindered by the prejudices and stereotypes that exist socially towards the indigenous population and, as a result, thousands of people from this sector of the population are unjustly imprisoned.
Let us remember that in some cases, such as that of Kenia Hernández, the justice system acts symbolically to send a message of discipline to women who protest and demonstrate against the injustices committed by the Mexican State to their detriment, but, above all, to those women defenders who challenge the systems of oppression and violence in the country.
That is why the resistance of indigenous women emerges from different places and contexts that not only focus on combating structural inequalities, but also on the construction of dignified lives based on care, respect and collective accompaniment with other people, mainly with fellow women.
They are the ones who have taught us to transform our corporal and collective territories into spaces of healing and resistance to the practices of violence embedded in the social fabric, to seek alternatives of struggle that do not depend on confrontation with the State, but on community organization to protect the commons, in the care of the land, seeds and life.
They also give us lessons on the reconfiguration of individualistic dynamics to think as a collective in our personal relationships.
After so much plundering of resources, criminalization, and now with a woman as representative of the federal Executive Branch, it is important to analyze what will be the narratives of the next president and her lines of action towards indigenous populations to counteract inequalities, mainly those affecting indigenous women, what approach to use and how this will contribute to strengthen their leadership.
Failure to make changes in the extractivist dynamics, in their integration in public policy decision making, and in the human rights of indigenous women will continue to undermine the construction of dignified conditions and will leave behind those who have the power to transform and ensure collective life.
Original text by Mariana Bermúdez published in La Jornada on September 7th, 2024.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.