JASS Mesoamerica builds, mobilizes and leverages the collective power of women to promote justice, safety and accountability in a context of impunity and violence.
We work with regional and national allies organizing women human rights defenders, leaders of movements and feminists in Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, and Nicaragua. JASS Mesoamerica’s work is driven by a team of seven (full – and part-time) and numerous regional partnerships.
Why?
Mesoamerica is becoming an increasingly hostile, dangerous, and precarious place for women and families. The analysis and roadmap guiding this work was originally forged by an extraordinarily diverse group of women defenders, movement leaders and feminists in 2006 in Panama. Their analysis noted several critical trends, including:
limited will and capacity of governments to ensure women’s rights and safety;
growing power of shadow forces – organized crime, paramilitaries, economic elites;
increased scale of violence against women and women human rights defenders;
increasing political grip of fundamentalist religious interests on the state and the reversal of women’s hard-fought reproductive rights and freedoms;
widespread fragmentation of movements and civil society, and;
relative invisibility of women’s rights agendas and contributions in public and policy debate and on donor and international human rights agendas.
How?
This rapidly deteriorating situation demands alternative action and organizing strategies. JASS’ response strengthens and supports women's movements to mobilize media and political pressure for accountability at local, regional and international levels.
JASS works through two main, connected areas
Urgent women’s human rights action – including action-research, agenda-setting and alliance-building, rapid response and advocacy. Some examples include:
Women’s Human Rights Defenders Initiative – in collaboration with various partners document and raise awareness about the gender dimensions of human rights violations in the context of violence, and strengthen women’s strategies to denounce and protect themselves from violations;
Petateras– a regional group born out of the Panama gathering that responds to violations of women’s rights in the region. JASS is a key ally of the Petateras and works with them on mobilizing periodic Observatorios (see below);
Observatorios de la Trangresion Feminista (Feminist Transformation Watches) – using regional and global solidarity and strategic media in an alliance with the Petateras and the Nobel Women’s Initiative to give visibility to women’s perspectives on key events in the region.
Sea Change Feminist Leadership Initiative – regional political training, strategy and learning initiatives, analysis, and debates including:
With these activities, JASS Mesoamerica seeks to deepen thinking, action, advocacy and feminist resistance and transformation in the region in various innovative ways.
In the Spotlight
Mesoamerican Rights Defenders Speak Out against Inaction & Impunity
Human Rights Organizations Demand Protection for Margarita Carpio
"The increasingly dangerous reality of insecurity and violence that are plaguing our countries require, more than ever, new strategies and alliances to guarantee the security of women defenders and their activism” said Daysi Flores, MI-WHRD member. Flores is one of five women activists from Honduras, Mexico and El Salvador who came to Washington, DC in October to appear before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and draw attention to the sharp rise in violence against women human rights defenders in the region. The defenders also met with the US State Department and presented at a public event.
Mexican, regional and international human rights and feminist organizations are denouncing the attempted rape, murder and continual threats committed against a female police officer, prompting the Mexico City Human Rights Commission to grant precautionary measures to ensure her protection. In September, Margarita González Carpio, a police officer in the Mexican state of Querétaro, was sexually assaulted and beaten unconscious by the state’s Federal Police Chief. Following the attack, Ms. Carpio was denied her right to press charges and obtain protection despite ongoing threats, including from the police. Ms Carpio’s lawyers have been forced to withdraw for fear of their own lives. In Spanish.
Frontline Women Human Rights Defenders Document Violations
Women Defenders Develop Curriculum
The recent attack on CIMAC's office in Mexico is another example of the reality that women human rights defenders on the frontlines face serious reprisals for their work. In 2009 and 2010, thousands of defenders from across Mesoamerica collaborated to denounce violations and murders. This year the defensoras have come together to formulate strategies for their security and protection. As part of their efforts, the WHRD initiative has produced an updated version of Violence against Women Human Rights Defenders in Mesoamerica. Coordinated by JASS’ Marusia Lopez Cruz, the 2011 report includes new cases and fresh analysis from national and regional WHRD processes and networks.
Mesoamerican women activists are uniting and mobilizing to better confront the violence they face as a result of mounting insecurity, continuous violence against human rights defenders and the growing influence of drug cartels, gangs and organized crime on women in the region, As part of their strategy, more than 30 women human rights defenders from six countries participated in an innovative training process in Nicaragua in September designed by and for women defenders. The curriculum focuses on mechanisms and processes that promote the protection, security and self-care of the women activists and their families.
UN Special Rapporteur Draws on JASS Mesoamerica Initiative
Indigenous and Rural Women Communicate Their Rights
In the face of increased insecurity and violence against defensoras in Mesoamerica, JASS and allies have joined forces on a regional WHRD initiative to strengthen women’s knowledge and strategies against violence, and engage regional and international human rights mechanisms to put pressure on governments to take action. In December 2010, the UN Special Rapporteur released a report addressing for the first time the struggles specific to women defenders, drawing on research produced by JASS Mesoamerica and our regional and international partners. Read more.
JASS’ Sea Change Leadership School, in partnership with JASS ally, Sinergia N’oj, recently convened 30 indigenous and rural women from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama for a training and strategy workshop on communications for activism. The women immediately put their new skills into action---creating a blog, video, and radio show. The Seattle International Foundation, Hivos and the MDG 3 Fund supported this initiative. Read more here.
International Action on Femicide: Mexican Government Responds
Women of Atenco Obtain Justice
Thousands of people came together in front of Mexican embassies throughout Latin America and Spain on Monday, Jan. 17th to condemn the murder of Marisela Escobeda Ortiz and numerous other Mexican women human rights defenders. JASS Mesoamerica played a lead organizing role in the international action, along with many different regional and international organizations. Six Nobel Peace Laureates of NWI sent an open letter to the Mexican government demanding justice. The government's response promised a firm commitment to ending the culture of impunity. Read more.
On June 30, Mexico’s Supreme Court of Justice fully exonerated 12 community land rights activists from San Salvador Atenco, Mexico, each of whom had previously been sentenced to between 31 and 112 years in prison for crimes allegedly committed during clashes with the Mexican government in 2006. JASS Mesoamerica Regional Coordinator Marusia López Cruz has worked directly with the families of the incarcerated activists since 2007, connecting their struggle for justice to international advocacy efforts, including coordinating multiple advocacy visits to Mexico by 1997 Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams.
Honduras: Solidarity with Teachers During Violent Clashes
JASS Ally Receives
Human Rights Award
JASS joined regional and international human rights allies in solidarity with the teachers’ union movements of Honduras whose members were attacked by Honduran military and police forces in Tegucigalpa, August 27 – 8. Four teachers were seriously hurt and all of the injured were denied medical attention at the main public hospital, according to Honduran Feminists in Resistance. Read JASS Mesoamerica Associate Daysi Flores' Blog. Read More.
Gilda Rivera, a member of The Petateras and a JASS partner, was honored on October 13 for her organization’s work as a member the Honduran Human Rights Platform. The Center for Women’s Rights and the other members of the Platform are fighting to restore democracy in Honduras and document and denounce a pattern of serious human rights abuses and impunity in the wake of the coup d’état in that country in June of 2009. Read more.
Frontline against Impunity
Mexican Activists
Add International Pressure
Women human rights defenders often suffer threats, intimidation and even death for their work. The rising security crisis in Mesoamerica and the deterioration of State institutions have left women human rights defenders in the region unprotected and under threat. JASS and its partners convened a three-day meeting in Oaxaca, Mexico from April 23 – 25, 2010. Nearly 60 women human rights defenders gathered to analyze and develop more effective strategies to respond and protect themselves. Read more about the context and event, and a translation of thefinal declaration. The full report is available in Spanish. The Executive Summary is available in Spanish and English.
If the Mexican government didn't respond to a ruling from the Inter-American Court on Human Rights (IACHR), perhaps they will accede to a media campaign with international pressure behind it. Despite the landmark ruling won by Inés Fernández Ortega and Valentina Rosendo Cantú in October, the Mexican government has yet to initiate prosecution of the perpetrators. The two Me’phaa indigenous women were raped in 2002 and continue to suffer harassment. Read more.
JASS Mesoamerica Strategies
Create safe spaces for women to deepen collective analysis, exchange ideas and learn in ways that build women’s movements from a feminist perspective;
Document and make known the gendered nature of violations faced by women’s rights defenders and engage human rights institutions in responding and increasing their protection;
Strengthen and enhance Las Petateras, including the urgent action strategy of the Feminist Transformation Watch;
Build bridges between diverse movements and different regions, and enhance dialogue among them;
Facilitate the construction of feminist thinking and practice in the region and share it with others outside Mesoamerica, and;
Maximize the use of ICTs and links with media to make feminist agendas and women’s contributions more visible.
JASS Mesoamerica
Calle 5 de Mayo, No. 7, Interior 211
Centro Historico de la Cuidad de Mexico
Mexico D.F., CP, 06000
Tele: 5512 45 21, ext. 104 jass.mesoamerica@gmail.com
