Black Women in Latin America

I just returned home this weekend from two weeks in Belize doing mission work. Over the years of doing mission work there I have realize that it is one of the most diverse places. There are people of Chinese descent, Caribbean descent, Mexican, Guatemalan refugees, Menonnites, Amish, and from so many other places. We worked at a school these two weeks and I became very close to one of the young teachers at the school. She is originally from Jamaica but moved with her family to Belize when she was a teenager. I began telling her about this class and she showed me an article that hit home for her. She said that her family members (women) have been discriminated for being both black and poor, but through a sponsorship to get her teaching degree she has been able to escape some aspects of this discrimination.

"A study by the United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (UN-INSTRAW), another of the panel’s organisers, found that indigenous women experience access to resources and positions of power in a different way from non-indigenous men and women.
Women account for nearly 60 percent of the 50 million indigenous people in Latin America and the Caribbean, and they face triple discrimination: as women, as indigenous people and as poor people, the study says. This year the Regional Conference on Women is focussing on the contribution of women to the economy and social protection, particularly through unpaid work, and on political participation and gender parity.
On the subject of political participation by women, in addition to reforming electoral systems with affirmative action measures, a number of aspects of political culture which produce discriminatory bias must be changed, says another study presented on Tuesday by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). The necessary changes should address unequal access to financing, the unequal influence of social networks, and the unjust use of time which demands that women focus on reproductive work (repetitive chores like cleaning, cooking and caring for children and the elderly), the ECLAC study says.
The emergence of women leaders in the region, the increasingly autonomous electoral behaviour of women, and the female vote in favour of women candidates are part of the new democratic scenario, says the ECLAC study on "Women’s Contribution to Equality in Latin America and the Caribbean."
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