The 25th of July of each year is the International Day of Afro-Latin American, Afro-Caribbean and Diaspora Women. On this date in 1992, in the Dominican Republic, one hundred Afro-descendant women from Latin America held their first regional meeting in protest against the white feminist movement that excluded them from its events. It was there that the Network of Afro-Latin American, Afro-Caribbean and Diaspora Women (Redmaad) was formed, which is now 30 years old.
It is a space for the empowerment of Afro-descendant women for the construction and recognition of democratic societies that are equitable, just, multicultural, free from discrimination, sexism and patriarchy.
This network is perhaps the most powerful articulation of the Afro-descendant social movement in the Americas. It comprises organizations in 22 countries in the region, with centers in the United States, Spain and France. It also operates as a transnational organization, with a general coordinator, six sub-regional committees and national committees per country.
In these 30 years of struggle, focused on improving the living conditions of the Afro-descendant population, the network has used as a strategy to uncover the multiple discriminations to which women are subject, denouncing the web of relations of domination and inequality that result from the intersection of gender, race, ethnicity and social class.
The network, in the public sphere and in the political field, managed to position repertoires that demand an intersectional view of the problems that affect women. Claiming their rights requires States to implement effective public policies and programs to eradicate social exclusion.
What is the real situation of Afro-descendant women?
Although the presence of policies such as Epsy Campbell in Costa Rica and Francia Márquez in Colombia demonstrates the growing political protagonism of Afro-Latin American women, as several studies by Redmaad have shown, the conditions of exclusion, inequality and citizen deficit of this group are multiple. Since the network was created, important recognitions have been achieved, but they are not reflected in social achievements.
According to Vicenta Camusso, an Afro-Uruguayan activist, indicators on the socioeconomic status and living conditions of Afro-descendant women remain unchanged. On the one hand, there are political advances, but on the other, there are few social advances and even setbacks, especially if we consider the radicalization of anti-black racial discrimination.
For Camusso, the complex reality of Afro-descendant women can be summarized in the following problems: a) limited access to education, with gaps that cannot be reduced; b) high reproductive parity at an early age; c) high entry into the labor market, with early entry and late exit; c) high participation in domestic service without labor guarantees; d) physical violence against them and their children; e) increase in the number of young women in prisons.
These and other structural problems faced by women of African descent can be summed up in the need to understand that racism, even after slavery, is a powerful indicator of disparity.
In some countries in the region, society is reluctant to admit the existence of racism as a factor of inequality alongside sexism, classism, patriarchy and coloniality. This is particularly true in environments such as the Caribbean, where the existence of racism is institutionally denied, with the non-inclusion of the race/ethnicity variable in censuses and household surveys being a concrete form of this denial.
According to ECLAC, in the Caribbean, where the percentage of the Afro-descendant population is large, the lack of statistical data crossed by ethnicity/race prevents an understanding of the realities experienced by Afro-descendant women, such as those related to unemployment, lack of access to credit, access to limited to productive land, little political participation; more presence in higher education, but less participation in skilled jobs and decision-making positions. Other problems faced by these women have to do with femicide and low access to justice. In addition, they also highlight the loss of ancestral territories and the reduction in life expectancy in relation to national averages.
For Claudia Mosquera, a professor at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, the physical, psychological and moral violence suffered by thousands of Afro-descendant women in Colombia as a result of the internal armed conflict shows that the body of Afro-descendant women continues to be subject to strong discrimination and domination. In these realities, women’s bodies become spoils of war and armed conflict actors often turn them into sex slaves.
Mosquera adds that another aspect has to do with the racial violence that operates strongly against Afro-descendant women and excludes them from labor markets with high economic possibilities, political domination and prestige. This happens, for example, in Panama, as shown by household surveys by the National Institute of Statistics.
Meanwhile, in Cali, studies by the Universidad del Valle demonstrated the existence of a perverse relationship between domestic service and the high levels of education of Afro-descendant domestic workers. It has even been shown that women who are called mulatto do better than those who have darker skin or are called “black women.” In addition, women of African descent have a greater burden of dependents, a situation that limits their economic possibilities and professional growth.
According to Rocío Muñoz, an activist in the Afro-Peruvian movement, and recent studies by the consultancy Grade, Afro-Peruvian women also suffer a scenario of intersectional oppression. In addition, the darker the skin tone, the more racism increases in relation to the body of Afro-descendant women.
In Lima, for example, it was observed that identity by race/ethnicity ends up being a variable that deepens the conditions of poverty in which women live in relation to their class, gender and subalternity. In this context, women identified as “black” or “very black” have less schooling, less access to health services, more heavy work and less pay.
The social, economic and political reality of women of African descent must be interpreted in terms of the intersection of inequalities, both by ethnicity/race, as well as by gender and class. Furthermore, as argued by Redmaad, this complex reality requires radical institutional attention, leading to the establishment of public policies with a differentiated approach, understood as a set of affirmative actions and reparations, which combat the problem in an integral way.
In this context, it is increasingly evident the need for policies that address the problems experienced in rural and urban territories, in spaces of political participation, that is, in all scenarios in which the reproduction of male power over the bodies of Afro-descendant women occurs. .
