Die indigenen Frauen Guatemalas : ihre Beteiligung am Friedensprozeß, und ihre gegenwärtige Beteiligung an der Umsetzung des "Abkommens über die Identität und Recht indigener Völker" / eingereicht von Barbara Kühhas

• VerfasserIn: Kühhas, Barbara
• Place / Publishing House: 1998
• Year of Publication: 1998
• Language: German
• Physical Description: 279 Bl.; Ill., Kt.

eng: The doctoral thesis is about indigenous women in Guatemala. The data were collected from 1995 until 1997. The method was active participation and observation during the peace-process, in cooperation with indigenous women's organizations, as well as a regional field-study in Baja Verapaz. The empirical data focus on indigenous women as political. actors. They themselves describe their organizational process. The data collection starts with different forms of discrimination against indigenous women and the violation of their human rights. I show the strategic political participation of indigenous women since the early 1980s until their actual impact on national policy as activists of civil society. In a very detailed description of the indigenous movement, we can learn about how indigenous women made the way up to decision-making, entities on national level. The most important, the 'National Permanent Commission on the Rights of Indigenous Women' (CNP) is the main example. It is creating a defence institution for indigenous women on national level, one of the governmental responsibilities granted in the peace-treaties, by passing a project of law in the congress. One chapter, which is based on the field- study in Baja Verapaz, shows the experiences of the pilot project realized by Majawil Q'ij for this defence institution. Furthermore, the CNP creates new ways of working with the white feminist sector by organizing themselves in the 'National Women's Forum' with equal representation of the multicultural Guatemaltecan society. As final example I included the process of political organization of indigenous women in Mexico, accelerated by the civil war in the federal state of Chiapas. The voices of Mayan women, members of the armed resistance, close the circle.