Approaching 30

The Women's House is approaching its 30th anniversary, three decades of learning, encounters and disagreements, and we are still far from achieving full equality between different people, and we are not only referring to gender equality, we are talking about an inclusive equality that respects the emergence of diverse subjects who vitalize feminist struggles for the liberation and autonomy of bodies, to raise the right to decide as a human right linked to the person's capacity to understand their history, deconstruct it and propose a transformative alternative.

During the time that has passed, more questions than answers come to mind about the actions of women as a political movement that comes from the intimacy of unequal relationships to the streets; women who organize, plan, and formulate proposals that champion our causes and struggles; sometimes successfully, other times with results so poor they could discourage anyone, but we always knew that transforming relations of domination and power will not be a solitary struggle, nor an easy one.

Achieving political unity means having the capacity to build strategic alliances, recognizing and respecting the existence of other social movements with which we can identify common ground that leads us to travel the same paths; it is about laying the foundations for a massive transformative mobilization. What happened on March 8th is a demonstration of the potential waiting to be called to action.

Nevertheless, in these 29 years, we can highlight some achievements: the legal and psychological support provided to women, girls, adolescents, and all those experiencing violence; the training and awareness-raising activities conducted in the municipalities of Vallegrande, San Javier, Buena Vista, Guarayos, La Guardia, Terebinto, and other localities; the training provided to adolescents and young people in schools to prevent sexual violence, human trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation, and other issues related to their environment, all geared towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals; and the use of Alternativa 103.0 FM radio as a platform for disseminating our prevention messages, which contribute to the eradication of violence.

In 2018, we attended to and supported 1,470 reports of some type of violence; 215 women stayed at the shelter. In the municipality of Buena Vista, together with municipal officials and social organizations, a municipal ordinance for the prevention of violence was approved: “Buena Vista, a municipality free of violence,” a legal instrument that already has its budget. The women who overcame violence received training and today are Community Promoters, activists, and human rights defenders who know how to detect the subtle ways in which violence is normalized with the intention of inhibiting women's ability to mobilize.

We are members of several networks, the Platform for the Fight against Violence against Women, the September 28 Campaign, the Feminist Articulation, the Fiscal Justice Platform, the Platform on Care, the UNITAS National Network, the Women's Coordinator, CLADEM, the National Pact for the Decriminalization of Abortion, REMTE and others that we left out.

As we approach 30 years, let us celebrate together this journey with pauses, but with the same political horizon: to achieve full equality for all people, without discrimination of any kind.