Women, gender equality, climate justice: a case for Defensoras. Inspiring stories from Latin America

Female activists are crossing borders in many ways (cultural, social, religious). By breaking taboos and social standards, they often provide drastic changes in legislation, policy and practice. But this also causes resistance from powerful institutions who consider equality between men and women as a threat to social stability and to established economic interests. 

‘Defensoras’ (female human right activists) in Latin America also deal with these kind of problems. They experience difficulties while raising their voice to protect their community and the climate from extractive industries. 

Do you want to know more about the relationship between gender equality and climate justice? Go to the Pianofabriek on the 9th of January and listen to interesting stories from Latin America! 

Defensora Mirtha Vasquez and UGent researcher Amelia Alva Arevalo will tell their story and answer al your questions. 
This event is organised by Catapa in context of the Defensoras project (see underneath). 

Speakers: 
– MIRTHA VASQUEZ is director of GRUFIDES, an NGO in Peru. GRUFIDES works on the topic of human rights and the environment with a focus on ecological sustainability, the right to water, fair economy and gender equality. Vasquez is also lawyer of the Chaupes, a family that became famous because of their resistance against a big mining company wanting to take their land and start a mine there.

– AMELIA ALVA AREVALO is a researcher at the university of Ghent whose main interests are indigenous peoples’ rights, extractivism of natural resources and indigenous movements. Her current research focuses on the implementation and exercise of the prior consultation of indigenous peoples in the Andean Countries. In June-July 2017, she was on an observation mission to El Salvador on human rights violations towards Defensoras.

– NICKY BROECKHOVEN is a post-doctoral researcher at the university of Ghent, faculty of Law and Criminology, department of European, Public and International Law. Her research is written from a legal perspective and focuses on gender equality, women’s rights and environment. She is also a volunteer at the Gender and Human Rights division of Amnesty International.

DEFENSORAS PROJECT
The project “Strategies of women human rights defenders confronting extractive industries” is organised in collaboration with CATAPA, Ingeniería Sin Fronteras (ISF), Red Latinoamericana de Mujeres Defensoras, Grufides and FEDEPAZ. 

The project is aimed at uncovering the prejudices and (violent) confrontations women environmental activists in Latin-America have to deal with. Some extractive industries are well-connected with different governmental and private actors. That’s why opposition to these industries can often lead to discrimination, violence, impunity and human rights violations. CATAPA and its partners want to give a voice to these women to improve the visibility of their precarious situation. 

The project aims to raise awareness to organisations and political institutions in order to create effective protection mechanisms and mechanisms aimed at empowering these ‘defensoras’. The goal is to encourage political institutions to implement a gender perspective in their legislation and policy that addresses the issue of violence against defensoras confronting extractive industries in Latin-America.

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