SANTIAGO – Indigenous women from a dozen South American countries gathered here Wednesday for the regional launch of an initiative by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization to eradicate hunger.
The ceremony at the FAO office in Santiago coincided with the International Day of Indigenous Women.
The symbol of the campaign is a violet chair that represents indigenous women’s seat at the table.
“The violet chair ... is there to remind us that without the knowledge, without the voice and the participation of indigenous women in the international discussions on food security, we can’t achieve Zero Hunger,” Eve Crowley, the regional representative of the FAO, said at the event.
Claudia Coari, member of a Quechua community in the southern Peruvian province of Puno, told EFE that food security depends on family farming, in which women play the central role.
The former congresswoman said that Quechua women require technical assistance from government to maximize crop yields and get better access to markets.
Librada Pocaterra, leader of a Wayu community in northwestern Venezuela’s Guajira region, said that the FAO campaign allows “indigenous women to be seen in the places they have not been able to reach.”
Latin America is home to roughly 26.5 million indigenous women, distributed among more than 600 different ethnic groups.