nuevas TRENZAS informs
MAY 2013 N° 9
Young Women, Participation and Empowerment for Territorial Governance Ileana Gómez, Norys Ramírez, Rafael Cartagena and Xenia Ortiz, Nuevas Trenzas-El Salvador PRISMA Foundation In El Salvador, territorial governance may be located within the context of important changes in the country’s rural areas. Territorial governance is understood as a space in which public and private actors, communities and their forms of organization relate for defining policy actions considered priorities for their lives in the territory. Likewise, the profile of rural populations has changed, and this is also the case for rural women. On one hand, their level of education has improved, they express personal aspirations for greater autonomy and they are related to a range of organizational forms inscribed within the search for enhancing their livelihoods. On the other hand, however, they still have to endure serious restrictions concerning the access to basic services, secondary and higher education, technologies of communication and information, and the lack of stable income and work possibilities in their hometowns. In the framework of El Salvador’s national study, rose the urge for pinpointing the level of influence of young rural women and their specific issues regarding their territories’ governance. In that sense, this research aims at organizing and deepening the findings of the mentioned study from a perspective that will allow broadening the knowledge about the role of young rural women in their territories’ governance and the path to empowerment for achieving the respect of their rights as well as social transformation of rural territories. Profile of young rural women who participate in local organizations For obtaining this collective’s demographic profile, the country was divided into five representative groups, in the departments of Chalatenango, San Vicente, Morazán and Ahuachapán with participants from the municipalities of Chalatenango, Las Vueltas, Tecoluca, San Esteban Catarina, Jocoaitique and Tacuba. The locations were chosen insofar they illustrated the country’s different realities. Data gathered during the research process, suggests that this collective is different from their peer rural women in various aspects: • High level of participation of women younger than 25, without children. • High level of participation of mothers between 26 and 35. • High level of participation of single women or women in non formal relationships (acompañadas, that is to say, with a companion)
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Another characteristic is that this collective’s level of schooling is higher than the rural-national average. National Territorial Participation National and municipal gender equality policies started to develop in the second half of the nineties, under the pressure of organizations for international cooperation and the influence of women’s and feminist movements in the country that pushed forward an international agenda compelling States to respect women’s rights. As a result, there were three important achievements: the creation of the Salvadorian Institute of Women’s Development (Instituto Salvadoreño de Desarrollo de La Mujer - ISDEMU), the approval of the Law against Intra-family Violence and the creation of the Women’s National Policy. More recent, in 2011, two other significant laws were approved: the Law for Equality, Equity and Eradication of Discrimination against Women (LIE) made effective through the National Plan for Equality and Equity for Salvadorian Women (PNIEMS) and the Special Integral Law for a Life Free of Violence against Women. Emergence and Evolution of Women’s Organizations in Rural Territories Data indicates that most of the interviewed women participate in organizational spaces of communitarian or municipal nature, to which they attend one to four times a week. These organizations channel projects, but also shape the leadership of women through training and provision of resources for them to undertake their own activities, some of which look to generate income, even if they are only sporadic income, that are usually short lived. Women’s organizations in rural areas have diverse forms of expressions: women’s committees of communitarian nature, non formal economic initiatives, cooperatives, political party secretariats, and thematic women’s boards and committees, municipal associations or regional associations of women. Historical Motivations and Practices of Young Rural Women On the one hand there are historically promoted leaderships: women leaders with an organizational tradition and culture linked to the war who are part of base organizations or cooperatives. These are older women who were trained with revolutionary ideals that they have combined with the questioning of women’s marginalization in the social, economic, and political fields. On the other hand, there is another group of women that searched for organizations that would allow them to make use of their leadership autonomously. These are women organized in mixed structures, in local organizations or cooperatives. They experience, however, a sense of “imprisonment” of their female leadership insofar these organizations do not grant them enough space, but that have allowed them to gain enough organizational experience. Young Rural Women’s Organizational Trajectories Young women coincide in pointing out that their experiences in communitarian organizations has been satisfactory, not only because they have been able to take care of a series of necessities (housing, access to water, improvement of streets, access to electricity, improvement of production processes, improvement of their diets, reforestation, etc.); but also because they have learnt something new and, at the same time, they have been able to create and strengthen their bonds with other members of the community. This women highlight that they enjoy participating in communitarian organizations not only under a practical perspective as they make it possible for them to deal with some of their everyday problems; but also because it is a space where they feel free, learn and even develop abilities that they didn’t even know they had.
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www.nuevastrenzas.org Participation and Empowerment of Young Rural Women In overall terms, the profile of the most socially active young rural women in their respective territories is similar to the general profile: lack of stable jobs, a significant burden of household work and family responsibilities that have been assumed individually-given the high percentage of single mothers and non formalized relationships with their partners. These circumstances keep them in an environment where activities able to solve their livelihood problems and relief them of their household obligations will still be a priority. However, women still related to organizational expressions acquire new capabilities and move forward towards empowerment, allowing them to reorganize their basic needs and rethink their womanhood. This concept has guided the work with rural women in the country from the early processes to the appropriation of spaces, activities, time, practices that have changed the ways of being a young rural woman. Empowerment processes in rural territories started with the search for solutions for practical needs and they have slowly moved towards the transformation of the quality of women’s positions as political subjects. In general, empowerment is articulated to different types of women’s knowledge and powers that allows them to experiment a status as active subjects that enriches the dynamics of rural territorial development. Conclusions and Policy Recommendations Young women’s leadership observed in the studied territories expresses continuities and ruptures with past generations. Continuities, in the measure that they derive from the militancy of women incorporated to social struggles that have contributed to stimulate leaderships of emancipated nature among other young women. There are also differences in respect to the leadership of older women, who focus more on private spaces for assistance, charity or solidarity. Young rural women express greater autonomy in relation to their partners; they assume commitments with their communities and recognize organizations as a duty. Because of their higher education level, they have greater information, tools for participation and opportunities for acquiring more knowledge. They break into their territories with their example, influencing a larger portion of the population. Ties to their mothers and grandmothers, the fear of what others might think and the constraints of mobility become diluted. Their aspirations enter logics of continuous improvement; they assume new possibilities of leadership even in political spaces, among others. This process of empowerment is still in construction, with its improvements and challenges. Discourse and aspirations of young women who participate in local organizations expresses determination in the search for autonomy, personal and economically speaking. In many cases this implies a significant break with their mothers and grandmothers’ personal stories even if the organizational trajectory experience in many rural territories still maintains patterns of discrimination and typecasting of gender roles, which are hard to eliminate in the short term. Young women still face limited opportunities for self-improvement. Very few achieve their dreams of autonomy. In these cases, the closest local institutions were important. Participation in their territories development processes has allowed them to participate actively in their localities and gain their families and communities’ acknowledgement. This active manifestation of what they do and what they achieve is the best way of showing the attained changes. Actively incorporating women into the various fields of rural territory governance strengthens development processes related to management capabilities and articulate different levels of decision making: home, community and municipality; as well as the potential of women’s organizations to move through national and even international advocacy networks. Young
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www.nuevastrenzas.org women, given their new profile and potential, can strengthen governance and the development of their territories; this is why they deserve to be identified as specific subjects of public policy. In the measure that women have more access to decision making spaces, they can make governance more democratic by introducing new rules that incorporate the acknowledgement of women in the efforts for territorial well being, profiting on their ability for questioning, their critical judgment and the awareness of their rights. In order to profit from these new profiles of leadership, vis-Ă -vis a better and broader governance, deep institutional transformations are needed in order to enforce what legislation, at least in the Salvadorian case, has already established.
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