Will Rural Women Be the Change-Makers?

WILL RURAL WOMEN BE THE

CHANGE-MAKERS?

Rural women sustain the life and economy of Colombia. Land work along with care work fall on their shoulders but they are one of the least recognized groups in the country. For this reason, the primary challenge facing the incoming government is to begin to pay off this historical debt in the recognition of their rights, access to land, and their autonomy and independence.

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n June 19, 2022, a new era was heralded, inaugurated by a popular and social justice-focused government seeking political change for the country. “Colombia, world power for life” is President Gustavo Petro and Vice President Francia Márquez’s main proposal but what implications does this have for rural women? Here we present some takeaways and reflections stemming from Corporación Jurídica Yira Castro’s perspective and experience.

Despite women making up more than half of Colombia’s population (51.2%), they experience structural inequality with men owing to their gender. This gap widens for women who also suffer conditions of vulnerability, as in the case of victims of the armed conflict who represent half of the nearly ten million victims of the conflict (DANE, 2020, p. 8). Likewise, a woman’s place of origin, be it rural or urban, also produces a differentiated impact on her daily life. “Large differences in poverty levels are present between urban and rural areas, with poverty rates between 2010 and 2017 at least 50% higher in rural areas than in urban ones,” (CJYC et al., 2019, p. 9). According to DANE, the gap in the Global Participation Rate between urban (56.7%) and rural women (39.1%) is nearly 18 points (DANE, 2020, p. 9).

According to the scenario described above, rural women experience higher levels of inequality compared with the national average for women. This has

differentiated implications that must be addressed by the current government to close the gender gap with men and women who live in urban areas.

The current government has promised changes for women in the areas of political representation, equality with and economic autonomy from men, and the rights to a violence-free life, to make choices about their own bodies, and to realize a prosperous and autonomous life project. They have assured the country that institutions and political programs will be guided by an intersectional gender-based perspective that recognizes women of all ethnicities, cultures, sexual and gender orientations, ages, and incomes.

At the level of representation and participation, the administration has pledged that women will hold at least 50% of all public offices at all levels and in each branch of the government. Fulfilling this pledge would represent an important step but to what extent would the women elected to public office have the power to make decisions regarding the public agenda for rural women and the cross-sectionality of the gender-based approach in government programs? It does no one any good to recognize the political participation of women if they do not have the power to make decisions that advance their rights. This is one of the challenges the current government must address.

Rural women experience greater inequality than the national average.

TEXT AND PHOTO: CORPORACIÓN JURÍDICA YIRA CASTRO

First meeting of the Mujeres Víctimas Agropecuarias y Ecoturísticas de Puerto Lleras (Muevaep) in Puerto Lleras, Meta.

Land distribution of and women’s equal access to land comprise another central point that this administration will have to address, along with comprehensive rural development. Despite the fact that according to the National Agrarian Census (ENA for its initials in Spanish) in the second semester of 2019, 89.1% of women producers ensured that their Agricultural Production Unit (UPA for its initials in Spanish) was their own, only women with UPAs of less than three hectares have the power to make decisions; in the case of women whose UPAs are greater than that, decisions are made by men (Dane, 2021, p. 14). This inequality in decision-making is proportional to the low levels of technical support the government provides women compared to men (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, s. f., p. 47). As long as the knowledge and power to make decisions continue to reside in the minds of men, the equality gap will continue to exist for rural women. For this reason, the primary challenge facing this government is to fulfill its promise to ensure women prioritized access to the distribution and legalization of land ownership, free and public higher education, and credit lines. Owing in part to the accompaniment CJYC has provided long-standing organizations of rural women at the national level, a decree was finally issued in 2021 regulating the Rural Women’s Development Fund (Fommur, for its initials in Spanish). This Fund, created via Law 731 of 2002, had, in practice, not been implemented for more than 20 years, to the point that it turned into a focus of ongoing struggle for rural women determined to revive it. This achievement, the decree regulating the Fund, was possible thanks to the efforts of rural women who now can participate directly in the Directive Council, owing to the Resolution 000156 of 2022 of the Ministry of Agriculture.

And so the new government’s primary challenge will be to launch a policy

Land distribution of and women’s equal access to land comprise another central point that this administration will have to address, along with comprehensive rural development.

program that recognizes all women in all contexts, with an eye toward repaying the historical debt it has with them—and with rural women in particular—through its different institutions, such as the Ministry of Equality (which has promised to unify all its policies to empower women) as well as through each dialogue space. FM

References

Corporación Jurídica Yira Castro et al. (2019). Primer Informe Sombra, específico de mujeres rurales y campesinas en Colombia. https://bit.ly/3BaK9Ie Dane (2020). Mujeres y hombres: brecha de género en Colombia. https://bit.ly/3cKpfpi Dane (2021). Situación de las mujeres rurales en Colombia. https://bit.ly/3RYpYTK Ministerio de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural (s. f.). Situación de las mujeres rurales en Colombia 2010-2018. https://bit.ly/3b2mZt0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekpPrPPrTco