Exploring connections between violence faced by indigenous women and unaccompanied immigrant children in the United States
After flying to the Mexican state of Chiapas from Mexico City I took a small bus from Tuxtla Gutierrez to San Cristobal where I met a dear friend Amaranta Corrnejoh, a feminist professor at Universidad de Ciencias y Artes de Chiapas. She was helping coordinate an event called the collective movement “In defense of land, territory, and the participation and recognition of women in decision-making”. The forum was being held in celebration of International Women’s Day (March 8th) and I came to lend support.
This forum was significant for our work at CAIR Coalition because I believe there is a clear connection between the communities experiencing this violence in Central America and Mexico and the unaccompanied immigrant children we serve seeking protection in the United States.
This was my second trip to Chiapas since I began working with immigrant children. Through this work I provide legal services to unaccompanied and separated children detained by immigration, including know-your-rights presentations and legal screenings. The children we work with at CAIR Coalition mostly come from the northern triangle of Central America: El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. Chiapas, Mexico is an important place for our clients and for our work because it is one of the major points of entry for people making the journey to the United States. In Tapachula, Chiapas there are three Casa de Migrantes (safe houses) where migrants can stop and rest on their long journey to the United States. As part of CAIR Coalition’s Detained Children’s Program, I screen many indigenous unaccompanied immigrant children who report visiting these bodegas while fleeing ethnic- and gender-based violence.
On March 6th 2015 women and men from all over Mexico and Latin America gathered in San Cristobal to show support for the movement to end violence against indigenous and rural women. About 300 indigenous women, many with small children, traveled from all over the country and as far as from Costa Rica to testify about the gender-based violence they face daily. They bravely told stories of mental torture, violent occupation of their land, sexual violence, physical assaults, and other horrific abuse they have endured while defending their families and land. One woman said, “If they come destroy my land it is as if they are killing me and my children because we are dependent on this land to live.”
The event was coordinated by the Center for Women’s Rights in Chiapas (CDMCH) which reported that they have recently begun assisting more rural women who have been displaced due to their husbands’ selling of the family land without their consent. This displacement often leads to the forced migration of women and their children, as we see at CAIR Coalition. Women at the forum voiced their need for land co-title, which they have been traditionally denied. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations recent interpretations of the 1992 agrarian law Article 27 that amends the Mexican Constitution, women have not been able to own land and have been continuously denied rights to the same land they work and have lived on their entire lives.
One of the main goals of the movement and forum was to advocate for equal agricultural rights for indigenous and non-indigenous women. Feminist agricultural rights attorney Ema Villalba from the organization Todos los Derechos Para Todos (TDT) and Costa Rican feminist organizer Alejandra Bonilla made clear calls for the need for better defense of land and the connection between violations of land rights and violence against women, because most of the instances of land right violations discussed were cases where women are the primary workers of land and the main targets of violence.
Despite the heavy presence of violence in these women’s shared experiences, the participants saw the forum as a celebration of a continued feminist intervention and movement for indigenous women’s rights. After a full day of intensive working groups on March 6, a Mayan ceremony was performed for all participating. The leader, Rosa Lopez Sanitz, explained that “the ceremony reflects the meaning of work that all women do in defense of earth and life.”
Over the course of three days participants in the forum divided into working groups organized according to region and developed a constitution and articles delineating the core function of the movement. On the final day, March 8, Día Internacional de la Mujer, they held a protest and marched to Plaza Resistencia in San Cristobal where they read the movement’s constitution.
If you want to learn more about the women’s movement in Chiapas please visit the website for Center for Women’s Rights in Chiapas (CDMCH). Explore our website to learn more about CAIR Coalition’s Detained Children’s Program or volunteer opportunities.
