{"id":28580,"date":"2021-03-08T15:56:47","date_gmt":"2021-03-08T15:56:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/?post_type=noticia&p=28580"},"modified":"2021-04-01T12:05:02","modified_gmt":"2021-04-01T12:05:02","slug":"the-women-protectors-of-brazils-quilombos","status":"publish","type":"noticia","link":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/noticias\/the-women-protectors-of-brazils-quilombos\/","title":"The women protectors of Brazil\u2019s quilombos","content":"

The memory of her great-great-grandfather, who was born and raised in the Kalunga do V\u00e3o do Moleque quilombo in the state of Goi\u00e1s, was fresh in the mind of the lawyer and researcher Vercilene Francisco Dias, aged 30, when the justices of the Supreme Court, by nine votes to two, guaranteed emergency care during the pandemic for all the quilombola communities in Brazil, among other requests. Families like hers, spread across 6,300 quilombos in the country, with no electricity or running water in their homes, are finally being assisted thanks to the efforts of women like her, the protagonists of this historic case: the first drafted by a quilombola organization. \u201cWe broke the silence with the help of those who came before us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like the novel \u201cTorto Arado\u201d (Crooked Plow), by Itamar Vieira Junior, winner of the Jabuti award, life in Brazil\u2019s quilombola communities in the 21st century resembles the bygone days of slavery, of forgotten black stories, of denied rights, of suffering that runs through the veins and the land that grew from the work and resistance of the families \u2013 and under which the vast majority do not have their rights guaranteed. Against a national backdrop of extreme vulnerability, the novel coronavirus \u201caccentuated what was already bad\u201d, in the words of Selma Dealdina, aged 39. Selma, who was born telling stories of combating racism and fighting for land in the Angelim 3 quilombo in the state of Esp\u00edrito Santo, is now executive secretary of Conaq (National Coordination of Quilombola Communities).<\/p>\n

After the first case of Covid-19 was confirmed in Rio de Janeiro and the World Health Organization declared a pandemic, Conaq started to receive requests for help from across the country. It was hunger, which affected three out of four Brazilian quilombola communities. It was lack of water even for hand washing in nine out of ten homes; and lack of basic sanitation, which exists in only 2% of homes. It was isolation for those who already live isolated in the bush, kilometers from the nearest health center \u2013 67% of people who depend exclusively on the public health system are black.<\/p>\n

With no real response from the federal government and in the absence of a national public policy to tackle Covid-19, Selma, Vercilene, an alliance of women and the members of the Jo\u00e3ozinho de Mangal legal advisory group, of Conaq, began to discuss how to guarantee the survival of quilombola communities, a right provided for in the Brazilian Constitution. In July 2020, the federal government passed Law 14,021, which is intended to protect indigenous and quilombola communities during the pandemic, but it did not guarantee access to drinking water, hygiene materials, hospital beds and mechanical ventilators. \u201cAt this point it became clear that the neglect of quilombola communities would continue. But it is important to note the other vetoes, at different times, such as the one that hindered access by quilombola residents to emergency income support,\u201d said Maira Moreira, aged 30, a quilombo researcher and black lawyer from the organization Terra de Direitos.<\/p>\n

There was no other option than to take legal action.<\/p>\n

The individual achievement of the many women who drafted the document collectively was not enough. In the past, they would have met up in person to discuss what to do with other leaders, but in the pandemic they had to contend with the distance and the lack of WiFi networks to work together. \u201cWe don\u2019t sit in our offices, talking and writing about everything, we build the movement together. It is an eminently collective and shared effort, which is why it works,\u201d said Layza Queiroz Santos, a lawyer from the Margarida Alves Grassroots Legal Aid group, in the state of Minas Gerais, one of the organizations that helped draw up the case.<\/p>\n

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