Recognizing the struggle of Bartolina Sisa and her example for the liberation of peoples and highlighting the current contribution that indigenous women make to the construction of more just, equitable societies and with full respect for the diverse cultures that coexist on the continent, is the objective of the Virtual Public Forum “Indigenous women: protagonists of the social struggles of the American continent… Without us, nothing!”organized by the Assembly of the Guaraní People of Bolivia, the Indigenous Law organization of Uruguay, the International Network of Chairs Institutions and personalities on the Study of Public Debt (RICDP), the Human Rights Commission of the PIT-CNT (Intersindical Plenary of Workers-National Convention of Workers) of Uruguay, together with Plataforma lacommunis.
The event, which will feature speakers from Argentina, Bolivia, Mexico and Uruguay, will be held on Tuesday, September 5 at 14:00 GMT (8:00 Mexico, 10:00 Bolivia, 11:00 Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay), virtually and will be broadcast on the website of lacommunis.org on Facebook (www.facebook.com/lacommunis.org ).
September 5 was established as the international indigenous women’s day in 1983, by the Second Meeting of Organizations and Movements of America, held in Tiwanaku. Bolivia, in tribute to Bartolina Sisa, an Aymara woman who led, together with her husband Julián Apaza (Tupac Katari), the indigenous uprising of 1781 against the oppression of the colonizers of the time.
Although census data are unreliable, at least 476 million Indigenous people live in the world, representing about 6% of the world’s population, distributed in at least 90 countries, 5000 indigenous peoples speaking about 4000 languages. In Latin America, there are about 60 million indigenous people, about 826 peoples and about 550 indigenous languages are spoken About 60% of the indigenous people in the world are women.
Despite the remarkable cultural and social contributions, throughout history and in the present, the reality is that Indigenous Peoples are among the sectors that exhibit the worst levels of access to basic rights throughout the world and in this region.