A babassu coconut breaker from Maranhão state. A Quilombola fisherwoman from the region known as Recôncavo Baiano. A peasant woman from Mato Grosso state. A homeless woman from the country's largest metropolis, São Paulo. According to them, the relationship between their struggles, expressed on March 8, the International Day of Women's Struggle, is the defense of the autonomy of their bodies connected to the fight to conquer or defend their territories.
This year’s Women’s Day occurs amid a record femicide rate. A survey by the Brazilian Public Security Forum released on Thursday (7) shows that, in a growing trend over the last nine years, 2023 alone recorded 10,655 femicide cases.
"Women are the defenders of life. I don't know of any forests devastated by women. When destruction happens, they are the first to suffer. They're the ones who live off babassu [coconut]. When a community is evicted, they are the ones who hold the line with their children," explained Maria Nice Costa Machado, a coconut breaker and Quilombola woman from the National Council of Extractivist Populations (CNS, in Portuguese).
"That's why we have to organize, be strong and unite," says Dona Nice, as she is known. She is one of the 1.3 million Quilombola individuals in Brazil, according to the most recent census by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE, in Portuguese). Of these, almost 90% live in communities that have not yet been granted land titles.
:: To celebrate March 8, women from the Landless Workers’ Movement will mobilize across Brazil ::
"This is our story, our challenge, but also our knowledge. More than anyone, we need our territory in order to survive," she adds.
Not one less
Lucineia Freitas, born into a peasant family in Mato Grosso state, joined the Landless Rural Workers' Movement (MST) about two decades ago and is now a member of the national leadership of the movement’s gender sector. She says the increase in violence in Brazil’s countryside affects specifically women and is one of the most important denunciations of this year’s Women’s Day, according to MST.
Partial data on conflicts in the Brazilian countryside collected by the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT, in Portuguese) shows that, in the first half of 2023, there were 973 cases of conflicts in the countryside, representing an increase of 8% over the same period last year. These include, for example, evictions, the destruction of farms and houses, land-grabbing and gunrunning.
Regarding women from rural areas, there was also an increase in violence. Records rose from 94 in 2022 to 107 in 2023. The report highlights, in particular, the rape of 30 Yanomami teenagers in February last year. Most murder victims are Indigenous men, followed by landless workers.
"Although women don't account for the largest number of people murdered in the countryside, we think of violence in a broad sense, including expulsion from land, torture and threats," Lucineia says. "When murders happen, women are the ones left with the children, low state assistance and in the midst of the conflict, which continues," she explains.
The scenario changes, but the discourse is similar to that of Débora Lima, from the national coordination of the Homeless Workers' Movement (MTST, in Portuguese) in São Paulo state. "Here we are living through a war imposed by Governor Tarcísio de Freitas [Republicans]," she says, referring to Operation Shield in the Baixada Santista region.
Since February 7, police onslaught has killed 39 people. They were all men, most of them Black. At a protest against police violence by relatives of the victims in Vila dos Pescadores on March 3, all the demonstrators were women.
"They are the kids of Black mothers from poor neighborhoods – and they died. This has to do with our right to land, live in peace and freely have our children," says Débora. Her eldest son, a Black boy, is 14. "We get scared. For example, I don't let him go out with his cellphone because I know he could easily be criminalized. Until he proves that that’s his cellphone, who knows what could happen?" she worries.
Right to choose whether or not to have kids
Lima says reproductive options for poor women are limited, both for those who decide to become mothers and for those who don't want to and can't safely terminate a pregnancy.
:: 'Women couldn't even have an ID; only men had it,' says activist Maria Querobina ::
"Men can have abortions. How many men, when they know their wife is pregnant, leave her alone?" comments Débora, herself a solo mother of four. "Often, women get pregnant and, without the right to have an abortion, they take unsafe options. This is very prevalent in poor areas and, without access to quality clinics, they are sentenced to death. It's mainly the Black sisters who die," she says.
Every year around 200 women die in Brazil as a result of unsafe abortions, according to the 2021 National Abortion Survey (PNA, in Portuguese), that is, one woman every 43 hours. Despite being a taboo, Brazil’s Ministry of Health states that 73% of young women between the ages of 18 and 24 who become pregnant consider terminating the pregnancy. The women who die or are criminalized the most are young, poor, Black, Indigenous and from the North and Northeast regions of the country.
The video interview with Débora was interrupted by a baby crying. "Just a minute," she said. She called a little girl, who took her 10-day-old sister in her arms - "take her to her grandmother".
If, in general, care work is put only on women’s shoulders and it is the network between them that makes it possible, in Débora's view valuing these jobs is key to them being shared equally between men and women in the future. "That hasn't happened yet. When care work is valued, men will understand that they also have this responsibility," she says.
Débora joined the MTST out of necessity. Twelve years ago, she had a young son and worked as a cook, but could no longer stay in the family cohabitation where she lived. When she arrived at the MTST occupation, she realized that women are the majority in the housing movement.
"The concern to have a home, provide a healthy environment and a stable life for children is more common among women," she says. "The struggle for housing is also a search for autonomy. Many are married and live in a situation of dependency because their husbands pay the rent. Then they come to occupations as a way of breaking a cycle of violence," she added.
Of Brazil's housing deficit, which in 2019 amounted to 5.9 million homes considered unfit to live in, 60% are occupied by women.
Among the topics that link the agendas of urban and rural movements, Lucineia Freitas lists the fight against hunger as central. According to the Penssan Network, food insecurity affects the families of Black women the most. In households headed by self-declared Brown and Black people, 20.6% suffered from hunger. In the case of white people, the rate was 10.6%.
"We haven't faced hunger yet," she sums up. "Last year, with the climate crisis, there were floods in the South and droughts in the Northeast, which had a huge impact on food production," she warns.
Edited by: Thalita Pires
