Violence against women struggling for land, Brasil
Few days before March 8th, International Women's Day, women of the international peasants movement La Via Campesina intensified their ongoing struggle against agribusiness and in the defence of food sovereignty. On March 4, 2008, around 900 women pacifically occupied Fazenda Tarumã in the municipality of Rosário do Sul, approximately 400 km away from Porto Alegre, Brazil. The women claim that Fazenda Tarumã of 2.100 hectares was illegally aquired by the transnational company Stora Enso. They demand the expropriation of the land to Agrarian Reform.
The women claim: “Our action is legitimate! Stora Enso is illegal! To plant this green desert along the borderland strip is a crime against our country’s law.”
Military Police has started to harass and commit acts of violence against the peasant women. The information that FIAN International received from the Fazenda, indicate that due to police action, 15 women are injured and one woman suffered an abortion through the effects of the committed violence. The situation of the human rights to water, food and medical care is precarious. According to reports, the police threatened women with their guns. Legal defence is denied to the women, as well as the access of media representatives to the locality.
The situation in Fazenda Tarumã is extremely alarming. FIAN International has urgently called to Brazilian authorities to respect, protect and guarantee the peasant women’s human rights and to take the pertinent decisions to immediately withdraw the police from Fazenda Tarumã; to provide access to medical care, water and food, in particular for the injured women; to stop any act of harassment or aggression against the women; to start investigating into the case, in particular into the company’s alleged illegal acquisition of the land.
The women of Fazenda Tarumã are determined to continue their occupation: “We will resist! Our struggle is in defence of people’s life and environment. We are 900 women here, but we carry with us the energy and the courage of thousands of peasant women that fight all over the world against the process of transforming natural resources into merchantable goods.”
More information with Martin Wolpold-Bosien, wolpold@fian.org