“End systemic violence that criminalises the peasant struggle and women”: CLOC, Central America

Central America November 25, 2020) Today, November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, we commemorate this date to denounce the violence that is exercised against women throughout the world, both in the field and in cities, and to demand public policies in all countries for their eradication.

La Via Campesina launched the international campaign “Enough! Stop the Violence against women!” in 2008 in Africa with the aim of transforming the reality of women in the face of a problem that directly affects our safety and physical, political and psychological integrity in rural areas.

Within the framework of the day of struggle this # 25Nov 2020, the Articulation of Women of the CLOC-LVC in Central America we join the international call of La Via Campesina and invite our member and allied organisations to join the song of hope, of the struggle and resistance to transform the harmful realities that perpetuate violence, to guarantee that women and diversities can fully assert their rights in the construction of new societies.

We are aware that solidarity and sisterhood are essential to live and coexist as societies in the face of violence and brutality of the capitalist and patriarchal system that exists in the world.

Mainly with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic that deepened domestic violence and generated a greater workload for women, as well as greater poverty and discrimination.

Central America registered more than 2,200 femicides between 2018 and August 2019 and in 2020. Atrocious beyond words, they can only be classified as hate crimes against women. These cases indicates the degree of violence we face at a general level and particularly as rural women. Violence has different manifestations and in the countryside, structural violence violates the right of women to land and territory, criminalises peasant struggle, imprisons and prosecutes women, deprives the people of common goods.

The CLOC-Via Campesina in the region has been denouncing for several years the constant violent evictions of peasants, families, children, where they destroy crops, houses, denying them the right to food sovereignty, to the ancestral territory where they live and the right to life . Bearing in mind that indigenous and peasant agrarian conflict is the product of the implementation of a neoliberal, concentrating, extractivist economic model that monopolies natural assets through institutionalised violence.

Therefore, we make a call to continue fighting against sexist and patriarchal violence, against structural violence that tries to end the lives of young women and women, girls, adolescents and older adults in rural areas:

• We demand an end to the institutionalised violence that criminalises the peasant struggle and discriminates against women.
• We call on the authorities to commit to punishing domestic violence, no more impunity!
• We sympathise with thousands of women from the grassroots of the different CLOC-VC organizations who, with the passage of hurricane ETA and IOTA, suffered physical and material losses, as well as the loss of their crops.

Peasants fighting for our rights, against the virus of capital and patriarchy!

This post is also available in Español.