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Life Onboard |
LAST UPDATE
July 19, 2005
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| September 22, 2004 |
The role of women in war and peace in Latin America – Interview with Maria de la Fuente |
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| Maria de la Fuente at the Women's Forum |
A group of nine women from Colombia, Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador joined Peace Boat between Cartagena, Colombia and Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala to reflect on the historical processes in their countries and the role of women in the current political context. All of these women have supported their country's liberation movements as guerrilla members, human rights activists, journalists, diplomats or academics. Peace Boat International Coordinator Maria de la Fuente, who helped organize the forum, sat down with web reporter Tim Wagner to talk about the active role women have played in the civil wars that continue to devastated countries such as Colombia. |
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| Indigenous women in Guatemala |
Peace Boat:
What have been the most surprising issues to come up during the forum?
Maria de la Fuente:
The most surprising thing was to find out the similarity in the approaches and the new orientations that forum participants are giving to their work on and with women. During the forum it was clearly stated that the secondary place occupied by women in the political decision-making structures after the peace agreements, is not commensurate with the role that they occupied during the war. Some of them showed clear disappointment on how, in the post-revolution situation, women’s presence in politics was far from corresponding with their involvement during the war. |
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| A Guatemalan family of Mayan descent |
Peace Boat:
What is the biggest obstacle Central and Latin American women share?
Maria de la Fuente:
During the revolution, the main goal for both men and women was its achievement and there was no reflection on how the post-revolution situation could integrate a gender balance approach. With the peace processes, not only have many women not been integrated into the political debate, but also, most of the politics proposed by the leftist government has failed to provide political actions aimed at the construction of a balanced society in terms of gender. About ten years after the peace agreements, indicators such as literacy, land ownership, women’s participation in politics, remain almost unchanged.
The forum concluded that the lack of progress in women’s living conditions remains basically a cultural problem and that the revolutionary processes have not been instrumental enough in moving them away from a deeply rooted patriarchal society. |
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| Women from the forum at San Martin Jilotepeque, Guatemala |
Peace Boat:
What roles do women play in Central and Latin American society now and in the future?
Maria de la Fuente:
Women participating in the forum have, in general, reoriented their work towards the strengthening of women at the grassroots level. Most of them are professionally active in well known groups, whose main objective is to empower women at the very base of the society by carrying out literacy campaigns, organizing capacity-building programmes in rural areas, providing leadership training in local political issues. They feel that reaching a critical mass at that level is the first step. In the future, the target is to have women participate more in the political decision-making system at the municipal level first, and then at the national level.
Besides their grassroots work, forum participants are advocating for the recognition of women's sexual and reproductive rights in the region. This work has been strengthened as the conservative Christian mentality is making it increasingly harder for women to have access to birth control and maternal health. Birth giving is one of the main causes of death in the region. |
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| Active rural member of Guatemalan women's rights group AMVA |
Peace Boat:
How can people from other countries contribute to these movements and support Central and Latin American women?
Maria de la Fuente:
Central and Latin American women’s movements have been influenced in both theoretical and practical ways by international events. Among them, the Beijing conference in 1995 (namely, The United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women – Action for Equality, Development and Peace) had a synergizing effect among the women’s groups working at the national level and as a way to mainstream gender equality in national politics. The organization of the Beijing +10 review conference (is helpful in proceeding to an evaluation of the achievements and heading towards joint objectives. |
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Brief History of Peace Boat’s Support for Women’s Movement in Latin America
In 2001, Peace Boat hosted the first Colombia women's meeting. The idea was to identify a consensus among women on the basic elements for peacebuilding and the construction of a post-conflict Colombian society. The meeting gathered women from armed groups, civil society activists, trade union representatives, members of the government, ex-fighters, etc. The group met three more times onboard the ship, and created a network called the Women’s Consensus for Peace that monitors Colombian politics, and issues gender-oriented position papers related to peacebuilding in Colombia. At the moment the group is in charge of preparing the Court of Women to be held in Bogota, Colombia, as soon as sufficient funds are raised. Building on the Colombian women's experience, this conference was organized as it seemed to be of extreme importance to share with other Central American women the experience, achievements and difficulties of the Colombian women from a gender perspective. |
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