Association of Women Babaçu Coconut Huskers of São Luiz Gonzaga / AMTQC

Confronting the principal forms of violence suffered by rural black women in the municipality of São Luiz Gonzaga, in the middle Mearim region of Maranhão. Structure-providing activities such as mapping and classification of types and degrees of violence will occur, along with the creation of training spaces and information on the available tools in the public sphere, through the promotion of public events pushing for further effort to eradicate violence against women.

– Introductory seminar for members, partners and invitees.

– Meeting with partners to develop diagnostics on the situation of violence against women in 19 communities where the association is active.

– Distribution of a questionnaire to collect data on violence suffered by women in these 19 communities.

– Specially-themed workshops related to violence against women.

– Public hearings with the city council to talk about the creation of a municipal Secretary of Women.

– Meeting with partners and the Public Prosecutor’s Office to debate the results of the diagnostic mapping and testimony of women at the workshops.

– Regional Meeting of Quilombo and Extractivist Women with the participation of local and regional partners, the State Secretary of Women, the Special Women’s Assistance department of the police and the local authorities, and the State and Federal Public Prosecutors. The goal is to build tools and spaces to increase public awareness of the principal forms of violence faced by women in the fields and in the city.

The traditional process of land occupation in Maranhão occurred through co-opting the rights of afro-descendants who failed to understand the new relationships of slavery that non-blacks established with them in relation to the right to land and other human rights. The region has been marked by conflict. In the 1970s and 80s, official state policy prioritized large monoculture, grazing and mining based on the concentration of land ownership and a predatory model in relation to natural resources, forcing peasants off their lands and destroying their livelihoods, forms of organization, culture and religion. In São Luiz Gonzaga, the women in social organizations have come out of an intense struggle for land and also face unequal gender relations, one of the results of which is the daily practice of violence against women.

The Association of Women Babaçu Coconut Huskers of São Luiz Gonzaga was created in order to fight for the social, environmental and political rights of these workers. It proposes to create spaces for training, guidance, debate and the political strengthening of women, building partnerships and social participation to confront the violation of rights.

Assema (Association of Settlement Areas in the State of Maranhão), Acesa, MIQCB and AMTR.