Article by PBI-Canada
The Peace Brigades International-Mexico Project accompanies Codigo DH and Educa Oaxaca, two organizations that took part in the Civil Observation mission that reported on the denial of the right to water for the Indigenous Mixe community of Ayutla, Oaxaca.
On May 18, PBI-Mexico posted on Facebook: “We express concern about the situation in the Ayutla community. Access to water is vital as a fundamental right, even more so in times of a health emergency.”
And on May 21, PBI-Mexico retweeted a Codigo DH tweet that says: “Three years without water, three years without justice in Ayutla, Mixe.”
That tweet highlighted: “We urge [the National Human Rights Commission] and [Human Rights Oaxaca] to comply with the precautionary measures issued in favor of Ayutla, Mixe to avoid further violence and criminalization of the fight of women defenders.”
Providing significant context, Samantha Demby explains in the following excerpt from her NACLA feature article:
“Several thousand Ayutla residents … have lacked access to running water since 2017. That summer, armed men from the neighboring town of Tamazulapam del Espíritu Santo took control of what they claimed was theirs: the Jënanyëëj spring, the source of potable tap water for Ayutla since the 1970s.
In the Mixe region, centuries of dispossession—from Spanish colonization to the modern expansion of organized crime—have sown the seeds for disagreements over vital resources like water. When water access is interrupted and the state fails in its obligation to provide this human right, women pick up the slack.
The lack of access to water has a disproportionate impact on women, according to Brenda Rodríguez Herrera, a specialist in water and gender equity at the Universidad Autónoma Nacional de México (National Autonomous University of Mexico, UNAM).
’It is women who, because of gender mandates and roles, are responsible for going to the tap or the well and carrying water,’ says Herrera.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, greater demand for water has lengthened women’s workdays and increased their stress levels.
In light of the public health emergency, Mexico’s Human Rights Commission ordered the state to guarantee water for Ayutla. But the governor of Oaxaca refused to do so, arguing that stalled lawsuits between the communities left his hands tied.
In response, Ayutla launched an international campaign demanding #AguaParaAyutlaYa—’Water for Ayutla now!’—with the participation of prominent artists. This year’s compounding crises have lent newfound urgency to the work of Ayutla’s women’s collective, which was formed in 2017 to support women impacted by violence in the region.
’Today our primary work is to reclaim our natural spring’, says Gloria Martínez, a collective member and former representative of Ayutla’s communal government. Without answers from the state, women are preparing to launch a new, non-violent strategy to reconnect the community’s water distribution system.
‘We’re aware there’s a risk’, says Martínez. ‘But as a collective of women we’re willing to carry out our proposal.’”
To read the full article by Samantha Demby, please see Pandemic Intensifies Women’s Struggle for Water in Oaxaca, Mexico.
Photo: Codigo DH.