8 Latin American and 10 European women's funds developed an investigation which confirms that different forces have united to roll back democratic principles and women's rights
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Feminist/LGBTIQ+ activists report increase in attacks in recent years
From Calala, together with Nuria Alabao, anthropologist and journalist, and Diana Granados Soler, researcher and university lecturer, we present the main findings of Attacks on democracy in Europe and Latin America. Voices from feminisms. This research has been promoted within the framework of the On The Right Track project, together with Lunaria Fund (Colombia), Alchemy Fund (Chile) and Bulgarian Women's Fund (Bulgaria).
It shows that there is an internationally coordinated strategy to roll back the democratic stakes. And, therefore, roll back the human rights of women, the LGBTIQ+ community, migrants and other minorities. To do so, this research describes and categorises these attacks, drawing on the voices of feminist activists and LGBTIQ+ people from Latin America and Europe.
Progress on equality is driven by the women's movement
Feminism in Latin America has been at the centre of social mobilisations in recent decades. In Western Europe, social acceptance of feminist demands has grown, starting with the mobilisations of 2018 and 2019. The media incorporate their discourses and analyses; even some governments declare themselves feminist. This has placed women activists in the spotlight of anti-gender fundamentalisms, as they question the status quo that they advocate.
The term anti-gender groups includes ultra-conservative religious and civil fundamentalist organisations, far-right political parties and some governments governed by them. In Europe, nearly 500 anti-rights movements and organisations have been identified in more than 30 countries. who claim to defend the family. In Latin America, the fundamental principle of the secular state, which is constitutive of democracies and recognised in the Magna Carta of each country, is being eroded.
According to feminist activists, fundamentalist political and religious discourses constitute “a threat to the democracy we have struggled to build. The democracy we want, where there are no first- and second-class lives.”.
Two sides of the same strategy
Despite the differences between Latin America and Europe, both are connected by the same scenario. The advance of right-wing and far-right governments that undermine democracy. These governments coincide in fundamentalist approaches to women's rights and diverse gender identities and sexual orientations. The research identifies specific attacks against feminism, feminists, and LGTBIQ+ people.. These attacks include imprisonment, physical and online assaults, and even murders, if we include deaths due to LGTBIphobia or transphobia.
Far-right groups in the civil sphere are leading the mobilisations and the construction of discourses., and are the impetus for ultra-conservative governments. These organisations mobilise against abortion rights with similar arguments and strategies on both continents, leading them to support particular political choices, some with a strong authoritarian accent.
Strategies to counteract anti-gender actors
A key focus of the research is to record the strategies undertaken by movements to counteract anti-gender discourses and protect the activists under attack. Women's funds demonstrate that supporting women's groups that society places “on the margins”.” (indigenous, migrant, LGTBIQ+, disabled...) is the best way to strengthen the defence of women's rights and thus counter fundamentalist discourses.
Among the key strategies, he stresses:
- The need to articulation at the international level to advocate, among local feminist movements and with other feminist movements, for the
- Publicly support and accompanying the assaulted women
- Countering, including pre-empting, network and media attacks
- Do not abandon the streets
- Employ all possible forms of communication and intervention, demonstrating the “political imagination”.” that characterises the movement.
To read the full report access this link
Photograph: Apthapi Women's Fund (Bolivia)
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