The voices of popular and rural women are increasingly resonating on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. They denounce that they are now not only facing a misogynistic system that reproduces and naturalizes symbolic and structural violence but also an illegitimate and racist government that justifies serious human rights violations. This has been expressed for months in popular assemblies, public declarations, mobilizations in different regions, during the last feminist gathering, for example, and now during the call for a mobilization on November 25.
State violence and repression is perpetrated by Dina Boluarte and her allies, the first woman to assume the Presidency of Peru, who does not represent us; on the contrary, she poses a regressive threat to the rights we have gained in intense political and social battles. Now, in alliance with the Congress of the Republic, they pave the way for undermining of our sexual and reproductive rights, as well as setbacks in the Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations regarding the approach to gender violence.
“This democracy is no longer democracy” has been one of the main slogans and chants used by popular organizations this year. This expresses the struggle of historically marginalized peoples, mostly women, for true political representation and participation. Violence and discrimination also affect them differently and/or to a different degree due to their gender, class, ethnicity, among other intersectional factors. Mining extractivism, which crosses their bodies and their territories, has also gained ground, especially now that we live under an authoritarian regime.
Dina Boluarte and Alberto Otárola have announced further mining expansion at the expense of human and environmental rights, in disregard for the serious costs brought by this limitless mining model. In 2020, the Ministry of Health acknowledged that more than 10 million people are exposed to contamination of toxic metals, most of them children. Hence, peasant mothers and those in affected populations are on the front lines defending water against pollution and mining territorial dispossession.
On November 25, we remember the brutal murder of the Mirabal sisters by the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic, which gave rise to this commemorative day.
Today, more than ever, it is urgent to reclaim the political sense of our struggle because women around the world and in Latin America continue to face political violence and femicide. Therefore, it is important to reflect, debate, and reconsider organized actions that help weaken and overthrow these hegemonic systems that jointly oppress women and take away their lives (110 femicides so far in 2023).
With more than 60 deaths as a result of police repression during the social protests registered at the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023, and nearly a year since the crimes of Dina Boluarte, collective actions for justice and memory are led by women and diversities who resist and aspire to have a New Constitution, thus changing the history of a country captured by the elites of economic power, which have not managed to take away our fear or hope for a Peru with justice and dignity.
