Co-Ed Democracy
In El Salvador's fledgling democracy, an Oxfam partner organization is seeking to open up opportunities for women's participation in local government. For María Elsa Hernández and the women of El Congo, the results have been life-changing.
by Kevin Pepper
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| María Elsa Hernández and her three children, in El Congo, El Salvador. Elsa is being trained by Oxfam partner The Salvadoran Women's Association for Self-Determination and Development (AMS) to understand and exercise her political and legal rights. By: Kevin Pepper/Oxfam |
María Elsa Hernández, 31 years old and the mother of three, lives in the community of El Congo in the municipality of Concepción Batres in eastern El Salvador. Elsa cares for all of her children alone, after her husband migrated years ago to the US to find work.
Two years ago, Elsa quit her job as a community health promoter to raise her children. Soon after, she became involved with The Salvadoran Women's Association for Self-Determination and Development (AMS), an Oxfam and Dutch Embassy-financed organization committed to improving conditions for women in rural El Salvador.
In a country where 48 percent of the population lives below the poverty level, women and girls in particular face significant challenges. Violence against women, including domestic violence, is a widespread problem. Women, especially in rural areas, suffer from entrenched cultural, societal, and economic discrimination, and are frequently barred from opportunities to participate in traditionally male-dominated sectors such as government, agriculture and business.
AMS is seeking to ensure that women can enjoy their rights, protections, and opportunities as full citizens. The organization began by instructing women in several communities in eastern El Salvador in basic skills training, serving as a foundation from which they could assert their rights.
"In the beginning," Elsa recalls, "it was teaching us how to speak up. They took away our fear of speaking. Then they taught us how to get organized. The next step was to assess our situations, whether we had land for example, what our houses were like, if we had help from our husbands."
After this initial stage, AMS began the crux of their work, providing rural women with a basic political education. This training has allowed hundreds of women to voice their concerns, and ultimately to contribute to the creation of local and national policies.
"Before the AMS training, we would never speak up, even if we didn't agree with something," Elsa says. "Now we know that we live in a democracy. The training has completely changed the way we think about things. If something happens that we don't like we can say something about it."
The training has emboldened Elsa and the women of Concepción Batres to take action. Today, to list just a few of their accomplishments, they are:
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Opening formal communication channels with mayors and police officials, and are demanding that their rights be recognized and enforced, from domestic violence and sexual abuse to local economic policies. Domestic violence has been reduced significantly, there has not been a single case reported this year.
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Pressuring the Ministry of Education to reduce school fees for their children. In El Salvador, school fees are supposed to be voluntary, but if a family doesn't pay them their children are often not treated as well as children whose parents do pay.
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Encouraging women to attend agricultural and livestock raising school. In only six months, many women are looking at commercializing their products for sale and export.
AMS has encouraged the women of Concepción Batres to establish a Women's Tribunal, a body of locally-elected women who are responsible for representing the concerns of their communities to various bodies of government, including the national police force and the Ministries of Health and Education. The Tribunal has already secured a momentous victory in securing two percent of the municipal budget to be assigned to women's projects. Additionally, a member of the Tribunal was recently elected to the Municipal Council, making her one of two women members and the only woman to serve without a party affiliation, but rather with the stated commitment to represent the concerns of all women to the council.
Elsa is hopeful that theses changes are permanent, and creating more and more opportunities for rural women to gain their confidence and get involved in their communities and government.
"Now we feel that we can do whatever we want, we can do any job there is. We're getting to know our rights a little more, and really starting to realize what our full potential is."