Women and the agrarian resistance in Guatemala

By: Mélisande Séguin, Campesino Committee of the Highlands (CCDA) Cooperant

CCDA women activists, planning and organizing.

Land dispossession as a historical root of the latest wave of evictions

Guatemala has one of the most unequal land distribution and titling systems in the world. Less than 1% of landowners in Guatemala own 75% of the best agricultural land. Some argue that the roots of this inequality lie in 500 years of imposition of a Western model of private property, which is in opposition to Indigenous Peoples’ ways of governing and managing land. Although these positions are not static, as economies and ideologies have transformed over the centuries and the transformation of the Iximulew territory, the contradiction between the campesino and Indigenous vision of land and that of the state and companies is a key aspect of the ongoing agrarian conflicts in the country.

Today, violence and dispossession are documented effects of the new wave of evictions targeting Guatemala’s Indigenous and campesino populations. Over the past few months, eviction orders against communities seeking to regularize their land tenure situation have multiplied. The campesino movement identifies corruption in the Public Prosecutor’s Office as the main source of these attacks, as well as the Bernardo Arévalo government’s inaction. Despite the ongoing – and exhausting – negotiations between CCDA and the executive branch, there is no sign that the government will stop the evictions or ensure adequate protections for displaced families.

State authorities’ continued attacks on communities have serious consequences, including the weakening of the social fabric and worsening poverty for the affected populations. However, communities organized in the campesino movement continue to fight for dignity and basic rights. Women have played an extremely important, historical role in organizing to end land dispossession.

The risk to women in a context of increased evictions

In the same way that the dispossession of Indigenous and campesino lands is a structural and historical fact in Guatemala, these phenomena are also aimed at limiting women’s access to land. Throughout history, different Guatemalan governments have passed laws on land management and land tenure that discriminated against women. In 1877, a series of regulations limiting women’s rights and autonomy were established in Guatemala’s Civil Code. For instance, several laws established that women could not manage household resources or estates, nor their own property without their husband’s authorization (1). Moreover, this era was characterized by the termination of most communal titles and the privatization of land tenure. When the State implemented this private property-based system, it established that a man’s inheritance would go his sons instead of his wife, leaving many women without the opportunity to own land.

The historical denial of Indigenous Peoples’ land rights and women’s property rights was accompanied by increased violence against them. For example, the implementation of the colonato model in the 1870s created conditions where Indigenous and campesino women were victims of violence and sexual slavery at the hands of the landowners who owned the land they lived and worked on (2). These conditions of violence continued beyond the liberal era. During the internal armed conflict, which lasted from 1960 to 1996, everyone from high commanders of the Guatemalan army to civil defence patrolmen committed extreme violence against Indigenous Peoples and against women, as evidenced in the testimonies presented in the Sepur Zarco case, the Ixil genocide case, and the Achí sexual violence case.

The Peace Accords might have brought an end to these injustices against women. However, Guatemalan institutions took advantage of this historic event to create reforms and institutions focused on market interests rather than the needs of the Peoples. For example, the Land Fund (Fondo de Tierras) was created for the purpose of managing credits to facilitate the purchase of land for Indigenous and campesino communities that met specific requirements. Since its creation, this program has facilitated access to land for several communities, but it remains an inaccessible mechanism for most women. Although several articles of the Fondo de Tierra law are meant to promote women’s access to land in theory, in practice men are over-represented among the beneficiaries of the institution. This can be explained by the exclusion of women from community organizing and the lack of enforcement of gender equality measures by the Fondo de Tierras when they approve the constitution of campesino enterprises or cooperatives. In several cases, married women are not listed as co-owners or members of the campesino organizations, but their husbands are. Over the years, women’s organizations have advocated to end their exclusion and allow them to access the Fondo de Tierras’ programs individually and to end the invisibilization of Indigenous women’s participation in their communities.

Finally, since the signing of the Peace Accords, and especially in recent years, criminalization has been one of the forms of violence that has most affected women. Where previously the criminalization of communities focused on campesino leaders, women are now also accused of aggravated usurpation when an eviction order is issued against a community. This situation has resulted in the criminalization of entire families and, by the same token, has made it nearly impossible to ensure their economic survival. Family members must remain hidden and cannot take care of their crops or move freely without risking arrest. This situation places women in a specific situation of risk due to their responsibilities as household caretakers. In the face of criminalization, women find themselves in a situation of extreme vulnerability where they cannot focus on their own safety, but are expected to take care of their families and especially of their children.

Women’s political organization

Through initiatives such as the women’s political school, CCDA actively seeks to create spaces where women can actively participate in the CCDA’s political organization.

Despite the challenges they face, campesino and Indigenous women put their bodies on the front line of the struggle for the defence of peoples and territory. On several occasions, they have been the ones who block police forces from entering communities to evict them or who stopped companies that come to invade their territory. Women are also the ones who hold and protect the community organization when it is threatened by mega projects or landowners.

Through initiatives such as the women’s political school, CCDA actively seeks to create spaces where women, in addition to upholding the resistance within their communities and homes, can actively participate in the CCDA’s political organization. These efforts have led, among other things, to the election of Neydi Juracan Morales as general coordinator of the organization. “The CCDA recognizes that only by promoting women’s political participation in the organization and at the community and national levels can rights truly be achieved for all campesino and campesina organizers.”

(1) La evolución del derecho de propiedad de la mujer a través de la historia – Observatorio de Derechos de Propiedad; Ana Patricia Castillo Huertas, Las mujeres y la tierra en Guatemala: entre el colonialismo y el mercado neoliberal.

(2) Under the colonato model, Indigenous communities were integrated into large estates as a free labor force in exchange for plots of land where they could grow their food. At no time were they the owners of the plots, which were located on the landowner’s estate.