Around 300 women from the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) occupied two farms in the state of Bahia, early this Sunday (05).
One of these occupations took place in the Chapada Diamantina region, at Fazenda Rosarinho, in the municipality of Rafael Jambeiro. According to the movement, the property has a thousand hectares and had been unproductive for eight years, without fulfilling its social function. The mobilization brought together about 100 women, according to the movement’s own calculations.
::In criticism of agribusiness, the MST women’s journey will have acts, camps and other actions::
On another front, the MST occupied the lands of Fazenda Espinheiro, in the municipality of Jeremoabo. According to the movement, the property was abandoned and a part of it is vacant, when the territory belongs to the State and does not have a specific activity.
According to Lucineia Durães. from the national leadership of the MST, armed men threatened the families that were in the occupation in Jeremoabo, this Sunday morning (6). She said that they did not attack the militants and that they announced the resumption of the occupied areas.
“The landowners are mobilized to not accept it and committed to intensifying the formation of militias against the movement”, says the leader, regarding the reaction of landowners in the region to MST activities.
Approximately 200 women from the movement were at the forefront of the action. The occupations are part of the calendar of the MST Women’s Day of Struggle, this March. This year, the theme is “Agribusiness profits from hunger and violence, for land and democracy, women in resistance”.
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Among the actions, walks on public roads, planting of trees, training activities, educational camps and distribution of agroecological food are planned. The main days of mobilization will be March 6, 7 and 8.
“We women are affected first by hunger. Hunger affects us in different ways. It intensifies violence against our bodies. Therefore, for us, the struggle for land is important for human emancipation. Emancipated women react against violence, against the system that the aggressors produce, against machismo and against the landlordism that profits from hunger and violence against our bodies”, explains the leader.
ongoing occupations
At dawn on March 1st, in Itaberaba, Bahia, around 120 MST women occupied an abandoned estate, the Santa Maria Farm. Owned by the Baleeiro family, the area has already been occupied by peasant families between 2015 and 2019 and has been the scene of eight evictions – some of them violent.
The occupation carried out by women took place two days after others carried out by the movement in the state of Bahia. The one that had the greatest impact was the simultaneous takeover, with 1500 people, of three areas of the company Suzano Papel e Celulose S/A in the extreme south of the state.
:: ‘We don’t eat eucalyptus’, says MST about occupation of Suzano’s area; Justice orders eviction ::
Editing: Vivian Virissimo
