ATENEO DE LANGUAGE AND CULTURE GUARANI
Maitei horyvéva opavavépe
David Galeano Olivera
GUARANI CAPTIVE WOMEN: HOLD THE unbearable
Published by the Center for Legal Studies CEJIS, Bolivia
Read (click) in: http://dgaleanolivera.wordpress.com/ Women-Guarani-captive-hold-the-unbearable /
Marcelina Martinez is 48 years and spent more than 30 working as a slave on a farm. There is a drastic change in his serene face when he begins to tell the story of his life. I got up at 4 am to prepare breakfast for the employer and the laborers. After cleaning, washing clothes and preparing lunch and then took him to chaco pattern. Also the women we harvested peanuts, Cumana, chili and we brought the heavy crop in the head. We had to fill the bag and bring it plump and if not filled not pay us a penny. "Just being donated food," he said. The babies put them in the back and went out to work. Sometimes we slept two hours in the day and employers told us that we loose, we do not do anything.
Marcelina's story is part of a chain of abuse that began in the colonial era when the Guaraní people, who occupied a large area of \u200b\u200bthe Bolivian Chaco, was defeated militarily by the Bolivian army at the Battle of Kuruyuki. As a trophy of war many families Indians were taken as slaves by the victors. They received compensation from the state as significant tracts of land are estates in the Bolivian Chaco. Since this time, knew no dignity captive families, living in inhuman conditions.
Although during recent years, noted the cessation of activities servitude on some properties in the region to date has not been given accurate data regarding the number of people living under the servitude regime. A diagnosis made in 2009 by the Council facilitators Guarani Guarani Captains of Chuquisaca (CCCH) reported almost 10 percent of it in that condition, ie more than 1200 people.
debt bondage women often suffered various forms of exploitation at the same time. Sexual abuse and children, products of these relationships, supported the forced labor system in which there were blood ties between the exploiters and the exploited. As a result, the Indians had to endure the abuse of wives "legitimate" with the permanent work overload in the housework and the work of planting and harvesting times in which they perceived low salary.
I've escaped once when I was de8 months pregnant. The landlady grabbed a bar and threatened me: "I'll give you this" and I said "gimme" and I ran away and gave me no longer. Wanted to hit me because we were heading off the little pigs and one had escaped and threatened to beat me. Other women were beaten, the stronger shouted louder beat them. "So to shut up" he said, saying that we do our job, translating relataMarcelina memories of a horrible time in his life.
The laborers on the estates were treated as subhuman, forced to endure humiliation on the part of employers who used different strategies to demonstrate the superiority of his family on the worker-slaves. One of them was how to feed on laborers, forced to eat from buckets. I was only nine years. My mother was a cook of 25 laborers. You know how they gave them to eat these poor peons? - Asked Jacinta Fernandez, responsible for gender in the captaincy High Parapetí "Seven people were eating from a single source. Was the order of the pattern. If they were fast enough to eat, if not-hungry.
foods had little nutritional value and were sometimes even toxic. We were treated like dogs. The master gave us no more corn to eat and they ate well. Sometimes jerky made from cow that had died from disease and salted and that was for laborers. All this was a debt we had to pay working. They ate wheat, rice, noodles. When we wanted rice is scoring and debt continued to rise. Afraid I must now, I can no longer duty, when one must I think one has to work and slave. And now we are not so strong to work, now we burn the sun, tells Paulina Montes 48.
Paulina's mother was born and died on the farm of the pattern without knowing any other life. His way, as the way of many other women captives, was marked by pain that arises when one looks at his parents and brothers sweating every day to do the same, tedious tasks without receiving any compensation. When you look at their children grow and reach the same purpose, without any alternative.
captive women had no spaces or time to meet, share and chat. Doing things together but not allowed to talk while working. His whole life revolved around work, did not know the notion of free time. When working with other women doing Cumana, we wondered: How long are going to work well, we told ourselves, will we die well? Recalls Pauline. The working day often lasted 16 hours a day, the only day off was Sunday. The patterns did not give permission to leave the farms, visit relatives or travel but could work Guarani their small clearings twice a year.
A permanent fixture in the lives of women in debt bondage were receiving corporal punishment for not complying with his work as perceived by employers. The women were being lashed, if the employer could not catch them sent to others, their young laborers to seek women. The room and put them lashed. The entwined when they ran away, were tied to a stick and had so for about three days, says Jacinta. Berta
Laime left the ranch four years ago. Gets to mourn and to remember the powerlessness of women from physical and psychological violence that had to face. Women could not out of the estate, did not manage money, did not know how to escape, had no idea. They were afraid of being stuck, the pattern of threatening, "If you go I will go to prison." Why not think about running away.
most devastating experiences are related to the loss of children. Deaths were unnecessary, stupid, accidents could be avoided easily. Abandoned children in the house suffered burns and falls because there was nobody that could care for, with all the family slaves. Marcelina recalls how her daughter died after failing to receive permission from the boss to take her to hospital. Mal were my children, the sick, a little girl is dead 1 year and a half. The employer told me I can not take it to the doctor because neither he brings his children to the hospital and cure them at the ranch. It has given me tablets but just as my daughter died. Start again
La Asamblea del Pueblo Guaraní (APG), the highest representative of this ethnic group has demanded the Bolivian government for more than 20 years, the recovery of their ancestral territory and the release of the captive families. In recent years, the State, in order to obtain the release of captive communities and restore their usurped territory to its rightful owners by individuals, has initiated a number of agricultural procedures, including the reversal for failure of Social Economic Function called by the existence of relations of servitude in various properties. Recently, this legal strategy has brought the expected results, obtaining favorable rulings and reversals of several estates subsequently taken by the Guarani communities.
The existence of the available land allowed the release of several communities, with an alternative that allows us to break relations of servitude. However, the full path to freedom is always long and difficult, it means establishing new settlements and face food insecurity, among other challenges. The stories of liberation is nourished by the courage that enabled them debt bondage many families leave the farms, without means to survive on their own.
The decision means a drastic change in the existence of the Guarani, although their attempts to build a new road prevails joy to work his own land, part of ancestral lands. A broad smile lights up the face of Berta when talking about his new life: "Now we give thanks that we have the land, we are calm. Before it did not, the house was hosting, we got home only to sleep. "
What do women feel when asked about the experiences of liberation? What do you say to the sisters still remain in debt bondage?
Women who are still on the farms would tell the story of my release, said Marcelina. I left the ranch for 3 years. Those of the organization came to speak. We said "I will continue working for the employer, he is cheating, you work hard and have nothing." We went to the new land, I said that I will not get used to but my husband has been lashed and wanted to go. We made our houses, our chaco and started planting.
Marcelina's sister is working on the farm the pattern. Rose at 1 am, but she did not want to leave, she thinks that now is as was. Before you put them lasso around his neck and beat them and threw them a shot when they wanted to escape and my sister still thinks so. She is 60 years old and is afraid that the employer will be bonded. He says that when we do not serve an employer does not eat and if you come here you will not have anything.
When trying to rebuild their stories, liberated women begin to reflect and realize the abuse they suffered in all its magnitude and in all dimensions. Strengthened and dignified are out of their role as unwitting victims. Have on projections of life, his vision of the future and on-ñandereko "harmonious life." There, in the properties of pattern learned to live with constant abuse and innate parts of their lives. Accepted the suffering that it caused him, as something inevitable. Now, projections, hopes, plans for the future are in the powerful way that helps them overcome the traumas of the past. Many yearn to learn to read and write since the right to study them has been removed by the employers. Others want to continue working to strengthen communities and especially to other women and helping them become the leaders of his people as in the case of Berta. I continue to learn to support other sisters who are still struggling to press ahead. I give this message at each meeting so they know their rights, which professionalized, as men have the right to get to do something in life. The sisters who are in the estates have to tell them to do their own work for them, they will not burn their bodies to serve the patrons. By Alexandra Bergier
Rehechasérô "Women Guarani captive" ehesakutu ko'ápe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-h3Vj1aa8k
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