Ecuadorian indigenous and peasant realities land in Europe

In May, the Ecuadorian State will have the fulfillment of its human rights obligations evaluated by the 56 countries that make up the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC). Civil society in the country has contributed a total of 18 written contributions, including those by FIAN Ecuador, which address several issues related to the right to food. Among these, the section points to a discriminatory distribution of aid during the earthquake across the Ecuadorian coast and human rights violations as a result of forced evictions of peasant and indigenous peoples, such as the Association of Montubios * in the Colimes Canton (ASOMAC).

The forced eviction of ASOMAC shows the impact of the evictions as well as the mismanagement of the redistribution of land. According to data by the survey on living conditions issued by the Statistics and Census Institute of 2014, 81.9% of households engaged in agricultural activities do not own land and only 3.2% have land through public procurement.

The delegation will count on the participation of the Ecuadoran section of FIAN, as well as that of the President of ASOMAC, Carlos Carpio. The delegation will attend different meetings with UN rapporteurs, diplomatic missions of the countries that make up the HRC, as well as human rights organizations in Berlin and Stockholm. He will also be part of the panel during the Forum "Human rights realities for peasants and indigenous peoples in Brazil and Ecuador" in Geneva.

On an important note, the delegation will meet with Ecuador's permanent mission in Geneva to highlight the work Ecuador is carrying out in the negotiations for a treaty on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights. It is expected that such commitment will continue with the newly elected president, who succeeded in the polls last Sunday.

For more information on the tour, contact:

Representation of FIAN International for the United Nations in Geneva:Suarez-Franco[at]fian.org

FIAN Ecuador: vera[at]fianecuador.org.ec

FIAN Germany: A.Abascal[at]fian.de

FIAN Sweden: rebecka.jalvemyr[at]fian.se

For press work, contact:

FIAN Ecuador: vera[at]fianecuador.org.ec  and FIAN International: delrey[at]fian.org 

European tour agenda:

03-07 April- Geneva, Switzerland

07 - 09 April - Berlin, Germany

09 - 13 April - Stockholm, Sweden

NOTES TO EDITORS:

• ASOMAC is an organization of montubios that was forcedly expelled from their lands. The organization maintains that access to land, water, seeds and productive loans are fundamental elements in their struggle for the enforceability of the human right to food, as well as key to achieving food sovereignty in Ecuador.
• The montubios, or montuvios, are a representative community on the coast of Ecuador. The present Constitution (Art. 56) recognizes the rights of the montubio people, who defined themselves as such, by executive decree No. 1,394, on March 30, 2001, as a social group that share the same beliefs, traditions , customs, norms, ways of thinking and folk speech.