Well I am delighted today to have Ana MarÃa EnrÃquez with us, who used to work at the Global Fund for Women, and then ultimately she (you can read more about her in her bio) she is now still working on women's issues, and I'm so pleased to have you here today because we've a little bit neglected Latin America in our class. Many of our examples in this class have been from Africa and South Asia, and very few examples have been from Latin America, although we have had one other person speak from Brazil. So, I'd love to ask you to tell us briefly about yourself, a little bit about yourself, and then tell us a little bit about the issues that you are working on right now. Thank you Anne. It is always a pleasure to talk with you, in class, or here we are recording. Well, I am a Colombian feminist, I am an immigrant. I have been in the United States since 1991, but I guess the struggle and the fight for women's rights I began to be in the movement, I'm, I, as far as I recall, when I was little, because of the context in which I was living in Colombia, a very you know, patriarchal society, with a lot of diversity and wonderful things, but at the same time a lot of challenges, particularly for women. I just didn't think it was right to be treated, including in my family, differently than my brother or my cousins that were male, and I just, saw I guess the light since I was little, to the point where I called myself a feminist at a very early age, when I was thirteen or fourteen, when I discovered contraception, the pill, thanks to a feminist aunt, and also thanks to the family that has been very involved in politics, left politics, and mobilization. I think that is as far as I can trace a little bit of an origin. I should name that, though, I should say that my mom, was also a very strong feminist by nature. Perhaps she doesn't know it in the theory, but she always showed me the light in many ways. She's a very powerful intelligent woman who always questioned things and was always on the side of the women of my house. So. That's it. I'm sure you work on many different issues, but what are the issues that you are now currently involved in, with regard to women's issues, and particularly relating perhaps to the region from which you come? I have had the opportunity to witness and be a student of human rights in many ways. I have been at the Global Fund for Women supporting grass roots women's movements and organizing, and also had the opportunity to be in philanthropy, from very small philanthropies to large philanthropies and then most recently at the UN where I saw the work of women influencing policy at the UN levels. And when I reflect on all of those strategies I think, what makes me be proud of is, in the context of Latin America, the advances that women's rights movements have, have had despite the backlash, despite the conflicts. For example, I could think of several advances in terms of legislation in abortion rights. The example that comes to mind is Uruguay, well just last year, abortion became legal under any circumstance. At the same time I have witnessed a backlash in countries of, like Central America where abortion is, for example in Nicaragua or El Salvador, where abortion is illegal under any circumstances and then other countries, like my own, with the new constitutions and legislations, we were able to achieve, and I say we, in terms of the women's movement in the country, the decriminalization of abortion in early stages, for example. So those are both the struggle against such backlash for women as well as the amazing achievements like Uruguay setting the stage, I think for the whole country. Granted, in Cuba abortion has been legal for many, many years and I think, you know, what we are seeing and the eyes through which I am saying this story I guess comes from two places. The first one is philanthropy. I am on the board of Fondo de Acción Urgente - Urgent Action Fund Latin America, which is based in Colombia. Now I was just thinking you know about when I was ten years ago at the Global Fund for Women, what issues was I witnessing back then because we used to fund holistically, all the issues of women's rights. And as I see the struggles and the force with which the movements move, I also see unfortunately more of a wave of criminalizing women, and rates of femicide increasing, probably more awareness about violence against women, some legislation taking shape. But at the same time, the implementation of those legislations being either non-existent or difficult for various reasons; stereotyping at the levels of the institutions like judicial institutions, or defenders of the people in terms of institutional spaces for human rights starting by their, their chauvinist you know ideas about these laws for example, even if they are legal, even if they exist, interpretations are very difficult. Or, and I think a trend that I have seen, even if I compare it in the last ten years, is the increased fundamentalism through religion, catholic, evangelical. I think religion in general, that has not been, that has been conducive of course to more criminalization of women's rights defenders as well as a backlash in the processes. So, it's, I see kind of opportunities, but also friction in how women are moving, and then when I put the lens of a philanthropist, I see also the opportunity that there is, and, and yet, even within that context, the lack of support, the lack of money, the lack of, yeah, even solidarity to a region that has achieved so much but is either forgotten or misinterpreted. Misinterpreted because if you look at the economy or you know the growth of these countries, you would not compare them ever with economies that are very, very poor. But, yet it is within those countries where the highest inequalities, in Spanish also desigualdades you say, are occurring and where the diversity of women has been affected. Latin America is very rich in ethnicity, race, cultural diversity. and it is not surprising that most of the criminalization or discrimination or marginalization is directed towards minority women or women of diverse backgrounds, for example, afro-Latinas or indigenous women, peasants. You know there is a new form of organizing now which is, in Spanish it is beautiful, it is called defending mother earth, basically. And I will say ten years ago, this trend wasn't there, at least with the prism of feminist philanthropy, what we were receiving at the Global Fund for Women. What I see today at the Urgent Action Fund is increased awareness of issues of land, territory, water and women being at the frontlines of this struggle, and therefore criminalized and targeted. But, so there is a new form of activism in a way, or perhaps there is more visibility about it. Of course it is related to mining and multinational corporations coming to exploitation of, to exploit land, to exploit mother earth. So, that's affecting primarily indigenous women for example, and that's a new trend. This is, on the one hand very encouraging, as women, when I think back ten years where we were looking for and trying to assist and support individual groups doing individual things here and there. Here, this sounds like a coming out into the public sphere and working on what are really international issues, not just local issues. International issues with the women's movement being part of a much broader kind of network, of, especially in this area, of environmental issues. And I think you have partially answered the question that I was going to ask you next, which is what do you see in the next ten years as either the challenges, or the opportunities, maybe that's the same thing, for women as they move forward into, as we move forward into the next ten years. Because you have just spoken a little bit about some of the difficulties, the difficulties that women are having as they are moving more actively into policy areas, like the environmental field, or other broad fields. Are we hopeful? Are we moving forward, and particularly in Latin America, which, incidentally I might say, has always been to me at the forefront of the women's movement worldwide. That was certainly the case when we began the Global Fund For Women. Yes, absolutely, and, and therefore sometimes the backlashes aren't always necessarily, I mean they are instances of measurements of achievement, right? And I think from an Urgent Action Fund for Women perspective I worry about the criminalization of the human rights defenders, including the activists that I was mentioning, the defenders of mother earth. But, at the same time I am hopeful about the way they are doing it, because they are not just using institutional channels but mobilizations, this idea of collective redistribution of the responsibility, of the activism and of the issues so that women are not targeted alone and this involvement with different players, men as well, youth. So I am always a hopeful human being, and i think that it's important to keep at the work of laws and policies, but I think we have neglected, in a way, we have neglected, the social aspects of it, and sometimes I feel we need to, that in order to achieve more things we need to shake those systems even strongly. I don't know, there's marches and mobilizations all the time. Of course they do not always appear in the media, but that does not mean we have not witnessed some change around that, and so it is a combination of things. So I personally think that if I have a new philanthropy, I would focus on the social aspects of it because we have a deuda, a debt pendiente, a debt that is still pending, deuda pendiente, with women which starts with our own selves, with women ourselves, which is the issue of inequality between ourselves, and class, and to me ... I guess the issue that I am trying to address is domestic work, and that's part of the social inequalities with which we live.
