Globally, Latin America has one of the highest rates of gender-based violence and femicide (the killing of a woman for being a woman). This increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the state of Rio de Janeiro alone, for example, 73,000 incidents of violence were recorded against women, between March and December 2020. In Colombia 622 femicides were registered in 2021. Although violence increased in this period, it is not a new phenomenon. WRV Collective made up of Scholars, researchers, policymakers and grassroots activists have been studying the nature and the causes of this violence. Their findings, along with the courageous projects designed to address this violence are documented in this book.
The authors ask how international solidarity is being woven from common oppressions. They ask how women are transforming patriarchal culture by breaking gender stereotypes, and how the arts can have a healing and liberating role in contexts of collective trauma. Answering these questions, the authors invite us to move between regions and sharpen the lens on specific case studies, in order to identify key actors and processes.
Written collectively and taking a participative approach in its research, writing and editing, the book addresses a range of topics related to gendered violence. For example, in Brazil it looks at how poor women from black communities and LGBTQ identities resist urban violence, gang violence and police violence – all of which exacerbate gender-based violence. In both in Latin America and among migrants in the UK, it looks at women’s struggles against the exploitation of female domestic workers as well as the impact of the ‘hostile environment’ against migrant women in the UK.
The book looks at the green wave and the fight against stigmatization, misinformation and political and religious conservatism about abortion. It outlines the multiple forms of violence that Indigenous, peasant and Black women face as environmental defenders, denouncing the international violation of human and land rights. It demonstrates how through participatory theatre, commemoration and public interventions in Brazil and Guatemala, women are talking about the effects that gender and state violence has had on them and their bodies, as well as how the arts serve to document gender crimes for collective memory, and to remember their disappeared.
Ultimately, the book aims to show how women have experienced gendered violence as part of the racist, patriarchal, capitalist and colonizing structural system. Addressing this panorama, each chapter shows us how women are transforming their realities by taking power, advocating for themselves, organizing and resisting local and international forces to end structural violence. It shows how migrant women, LGBTQ collectives, and Indigenous women’s organizations are mobilizing in Latin America and the United Kingdom to stop the continuum of violence against women and girls – through protest, memorial, ‘artivism’, social media, a feminist ethics of care, debate, mobile apps, lobbying, conventions, and more...
One of the challenges of the book was to preserve the voices and experiences of women who are pushing forward these feminist realities of resistance and collective power. The book includes quotes from activists and survivors of violence, as well as a wealth of further resources. For example, if you want to know more about the situation of women in Rio and the Casa das Mulheres made by and for them, or about how a community has come together to publicly mourn the 56 girls who were abused in a state children’s home in Guatemala, or about the Step Up Migrant Women Campaign lobbying MPs in the UK –all touched on in the book– you can listen to the Women Resisting Violence podcast in Spanish, English and Portuguese: https://lab.org.uk/wrv/podcast/. The book’s references are accessible online, alongside articles, videos, and other relevant multimedia resources on the project blog: https://lab.org.uk/wrv/book/
Women Resisting Violence: Voices and Experiences from Latin America can be a resource for students and researchers contributing to feminist thought and documenting practices of resistance. The book can be read by practitioners and professionals working in the VAWG sector, by grassroots activists mobilizing, and by those of us who are part of the Latin American and Caribbean feminist diaspora in the UK, who must be informed about what is happening in our motherlands in order to resist in hope and guarantee that we move towards feminist futures free of gender-based violence.
We, Latin American migrant women, are a key part of this struggle.
Jael de la Luz is historian, intersectional feminist, community organiser, writer, independent research and redactor in Feminopraxis, online feminist magazine in Spanish.
Women Resisting Violence: Voices and experiences from Latin America by the WRV Collective is published by Latin America Bureau and Practical Action Publishing. Order a copy here and browse the website here.
