Rural Women and Land Reform

Rabab Abdulhadi, born in 1955 in Palestine, is an activist and scholar contributing to the struggle for Palestinian self-determination and the well-being of Palestinian women. She was the Director of Political and International Relations at the Middle East Research Center in New York. She helped found the Union of Palestinian Women's Associations in North America during the first Intifada, or Palestinian uprising. At last contact, she was conducting research for the Gender and Sexuality Studies Center, in the Global South Project.
Keywords: reproductive rights, rural women and land reform
Media: Transcript (English), Video, Bibliography, YouTube Video, Name Pronunciation Audio

Bertha Inés Cabrales was born in 1943 and joined the Sandinista Front during college and in the late 1970s was sent to Sweden to organize Solidarity events in Europe. She was active in the Luisa Amanda Espinoza Association of Nicaraguan Women and at last contact was head of the Collectivo de Mujeres Itza, an organization that provides sexual and reproductive health counseling as well as legal assistance for victims of gender-based violence.
Keywords: gender and health, media, gender-based violence, reproductive rights, rural women and land reform
Media: Transcript (English, Spanish), Video (English, Spanish), Bibliography, YouTube Video (English, Spanish) Name Pronunciation Audio

Marilda de Souza Francisco, born in 1962 in Angra dos Reis, grew up in the Quilombo community of Santa Ria de Bracuí. She has been active in community organizing all of her life and she has worked in the schools of Angra for many years, promoting education and community development in this rural community of black Brazilians who are descendants of slaves.
Keywords: education, rural women and land reform, racial identity
Media: Transcript (Portuguese, English), Video, YouTube Video (Portuguese, English Subtitles) Name Pronunciation Audio

He Zhonghua, born in 1937, is a professor of literature from the Naxi ethnic minority. She established a women's studies center in the Academy of Social Sciences and a minority women research center in Yunnan. She has worked on many projects ranging from improving ethnic minority women's health to empowering women to participate in rural development.
Keywords: feminist conferences, environment, academia and women's studies, education, intersectionality, rural women and land reform
Media: Transcript (English, Mandarin), Video (English, Mandarin), Bibliography, YouTube Video (Mandarin, English Dubbed), Name Pronunciation Audio

Li Huiying, born in 1957, is Professor of Sociology and assistant Director of the Women Research Center of the Central Party School, providing training for senior level Chinese Communist Party officials. She has succeeded in incorporating courses on gender studies in the official curriculum and runs feminist workshops for faculty nationwide.
Keywords: feminist conferences, academia and women's studies, education, politics and the law, reform of domestic/family roles, rural women and land reform
Media: Transcript (English, Mandarin), Video (English, Mandarin), Bibliography, YouTube Video (Mandarin, English Dubbed), Name Pronunciation Audio

Diana Martínez was born in 1958, and became active in the Sandinista movement as a student, finishing high school in Guatemala and becoming a Marxist. After the Sandinista Revolution, she returned to Nicaragua and worked in the textile industry based on her belief in the importance of laborers, and in an effort to rid herself of her bourgeois past. She has been involved with feminist research in Nicaragua, and at last contact was a director at La Fem, a coffee cooperative for women in Estelí.
Keywords: gender and health, rural women and land reform, reproductive rights, academia and women's studies
Media: Transcript (English, Spanish), Video, Name Pronunciation Audio

Tania Pariona Tarqui, born in 1984, is an indigenous activist, Quechua leader, feminist, politician, human rights activist and former Congressperson. As an activist, she works to establish social equality for indigenous youth and women. She began her community work with National Movement of Organized Working Children and Adolescents of Peru (MNNATSOP), an overarching umbrella for many children’s working groups. She was chosen as a Latin American delegate and had her first experience of international representation at age 15 at the “World Summit for Children” at the United Nations in New York. She studied Social Work at the San Cristóbal of Huamanga University, graduating in 2009, and then Human Development at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru in Lima. She went on to work with the Centre for Indigenous Cultures of Peru (CHRIAPAQ), collaborating on several projects aimed at indigenous youth and women nationally and internationally. In 2010, with Andean and Amazonian sisters, she helped form the Organización Nacional de Mujeres Andinas y Amazónicas de Perú, (ONAMIAP) that promotes the participation of indigenous women and fulfillment of their individual and collective rights. She was the first youth secretary for ONAMIAP. She was elected to the Peruvian Congress in 2016 by the Broad Front for Justice, Life and Freedom, coalition of political parties. In September 2017, she joined the New Peru movement. From 2018-2019, she was the president of the Commission on Women and Family, which promoted the first thematic plenary session focused on a women’s agenda and equality between men and women. Her parliamentary work was dedicated to the defense of the rights of indigenous and native peoples against mining companies, the human right to water and reparations for the victims of the armed conflict, and working against impunity of the perpetrators of crimes, including compulsory sterilization under Alberto Fujimori's government. She is currently assuming responsibility for the Indigenous Women’s Program in CHIRAPAQ and has concerns for the indigenous populations of the Sierra and jungle coast, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: community activism, gender-based violence, indigenous issues, reproductive rights, rural women and land reform

Media: Transcript (Spanish, English), Video, YouTube Video (Spanish, English Subtitles), Name Pronunciation Audio

Interviewee Photo Credit

Tarcila Rivera Zea is a Quechua activist who has dedicated nearly 40 years of her life to defending and seeking recognition for the indigenous people of Perú. She was born in the community of San Francisco de Pujas, Ayacucho, capital of the province of Huamanga, Peru. During the 1970s, she worked as a specialized secretary in archival and library science at the Ministry of Culture of Peru, studying at the Vatican City and Argentina. She also served as secretary of Martha Hildebrandt at the National Institute of Culture. Years later she collaborated as a journalist for the Pueblo Indio magazine of the Indian Council of South America (CISA). In recognition of her work in collecting testimonies of Indigenous women raped during armed conflicts, she was invited to pursue specialization courses in human rights at the Institute for Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague, The Netherlands, and the International Center for Education in Human Rights in Charlottetown, Canada. In 1987 she began to participate in international processes on the rights of indigenous peoples, as well as in United Nations conferences on Women, which led her to be invited by UN Women in 2012 to be part of her International Advisory Group on the Civil Society. Rivera Zea is the founder of the Continental Link of Indigenous Women of the Americas (ECMIA) and the International Forum of Indigenous Women (FIMI), two networks that promote the empowerment and political involvement of the world's indigenous women. As a result of all her years of activism, defending and making visible the cultures and indigenous peoples of Peru, the Permanent Workshop of Andean and Amazonian Indigenous Women of Peru and of the Center of Indigenous Cultures of Peru (CHIRAPAQ) was created. She was president of CHIRAPAQ and is currently the vice president, coordinator of the Continental Liaison for Indigenous Women of the Americas (ECMIA), member of the Board of Directors of the Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Peoples of the United Nations between 2006 and 2011. She has also collaborated in the creation of the International Indigenous Press Agency (AIPIN).

Keywords: community activism, intersectionality, racial identity, rural women and land reform

Media: Transcript (Spanish, English), Video, YouTube Video (Spanish, English Subtitles), Name Pronunciation Audio

Interviewee Photo Credit

Martha Heriberta Valle is an activist in the Women's Movement and in the Cooperative Movement. She joined the Revolution at an early age, and joined the organization of women farmers when the Revolution triumphed. She has been an organizer of rural women, a former elected official of the National Assembly, and at last contact was serving as president and founder of the Agricultural Cooperative Federation of Country Women Producers of Nicaragua (FEMUPROCAN).
Keywords: politics and the law, rural women and land reform
Media: Transcript (English, Spanish), Video (English, Spanish), Bibliography, English YouTube Video, Name Pronunciation Audio