Chico Mendes Lives: Amazon women in defense of life

This narrative is the result of the round of talks “Chico Mendes Vive”, held during the III Latin American Congress of Political Ecology. It is a living experience of four Amazonian women, Angela Mendes, Claudelice Santos, Edel Moraes and Sônia Guajajara, whose speeches emerge from the experience of indigenous, black, cabocla, agro-extractivist women, who make of their lives a struggle in defense of Mother Earth and of the “common good”, which aggregates, welcomes and feeds all the other forms of being in the universe. This narrative expresses the continuity of the re-existence of native and indigenous peoples, the reconnection of the peoples of the forest, water and countryside, through the legacy left by Chico Mendes, a son of the Amazon, who was assassinated for defending and fighting for life.

Violence against Amazon women

This quantitative and exploratory study analyzed violence against Amazon women presented in print media according to type and severity, and whether aggressors fell under the Maria da Penha law. A total of 181 issues of a regional newspaper were consulted. Based on content analysis, 164 items addressing violence against women were selected and 46 were included in the corpus of analysis. Results were gathered in three thematic groups: women killed with cruelty, sexual violence against women regardless of age, and violence against women and the limitations of the Maria da Penha law. Violence against these women varied in terms of form and severity, including up to homicide. Women are submitted to sexual violence from childhood through adulthood. The enforcement of this law shows the community it has a means to cope with this social phenomenon.