Indigenous candidate disqualified because she is 'not a man'

Eufrosina Cruz was unable to exercise her constitutional right to stand for election as mayor of a small municipality in the southern state of Oaxaca, Mexico, because, according to the "uses and customs" of her indigenous community, women can neither vote nor be elected. "My crime was not being born male, but things cannot stand as they are," Cruz told IPS. Cruz, a 28-year-old accountant, filed formal complaints of discrimination to several authorities. She has received death threats from men belonging to her community. "They told me that I would be silenced by a bullet, and a man called my cell phone and insulted me in an extremely foul-mouthed and rude way. Excuse the expression, but he told me to f*ck off," she said in a telephone interview from Oaxaca, the capital of the state of the same name. Since Mar. 7, Cruz has been provided with police protection at the request of the state National Human Rights Commission, by the Oaxaca state government, which has been in the hands of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) since the 1920s. "I'm not against uses and customs, only against abuses and customs. In this state there are 82 municipalities where women have no rights within their communities, and therefore they can't even express their opinions in assemblies, let alone vote or be voted for," Cruz said. Oaxaca is one of the poorest states in Mexico, with one of the highest proportions of indigenous people. Out of its 570 municipalities, 418 govern themselves according to local indigenous traditions and customs. Under Oaxacan state law, indigenous municipalities may elect community authorities in traditional assemblies, without the participation of political parties. According to the same state rules, elections must respect the constitutional rights enshrined in Mexican federal law, which establish the equality of men and women. "On paper, it's a good law, but in 82 municipalities, including mine, the traditional custom is for women not to participate, and so far no one has protested this. There is even a list of community rules, used by mayors, in which the word 'women' doesn't even appear," said Cruz. Cruz is from the municipality of Santa María Quiegolani, a community of 800 Zapoteca indigenous people high up in the mountains of Oaxaca, where the main occupation is subsistence agriculture. Out of the residents of Quiegolani, 200 men aged over 18 dominate the assemblies, while 250 adult women "are left out of all decision making because of our famous 'uses and customs'," said Cruz. "It's always been that way, but I rebelled against the system and that's why I'm being threatened," she said. Nearly 60 percent of the 3.5 million people in Oaxaca state live in rural villages of less that 2,000 people. Cruz left Quiegolani when she was 11 years old, and went to the city of Salina Cruz, also in Oaxaca but located on the shores of the Pacific ocean. Her plan was to continue her studies and gain an academic degree. "I didn't want to go on getting up at three in the morning to make tortillas, fetch firewood and water, weed the communal maize field, and then end up being married off at 13, like my sister, and having nine or 10 children by the age of 24," she said. "That's why I left, and I think I did the right thing," she added. In Salina Cruz, population 80,000, she lived with relatives, but "it was very tough, because in order to make a little money I had to sell tacos, sweets, corn on the cob, and such like," she said. "There were times when I would ask myself, 'My God, is it worth it?' It's very hard to have no money and to have dreams you want to accomplish, it's really very difficult," she said. "I made my own way forward, but I never stopped visiting my village. I still go there every weekend and whenever else I can. That's why they all know me there, and some people back me up, because when I'm in the state capital I carry out official paperwork for the women back home, and I find out about social programs for them. I constantly look out for their welfare," she said. For the last five years, Cruz has lived alone in Oaxaca, where she works Monday to Friday as an academic curriculum coordinator in public vocational schools for secondary students. Every weekend, without fail, she boards a bus and travels nine hours to the home of her campesino (small farmer) parents in Quiegolani. Last year she decided to stand as the first woman mayor of her community, after talking it over with some of her neighbors in the village. At the assembly held on Nov. 4, 2007 to elect a new mayor for the next two years, some men nominated Cruz for the post, and wrote her name down on their ballot papers. But when the leaders of the all-male electoral assembly realized that some of the voters were casting their ballots for Cruz, they stopped the voting and announced that she could not become mayor. They tore up the ballots and began a new electoral round, which was won by school teacher Eloy Mendoza. Cruz said that some of the men from the assembly came and told her what was happening, so she went to the meeting to raise her voice in protest. "They just told me that as a woman and a professional (accountant) I was not eligible, and they made me leave. That really made me furious, because I felt that my crime was simply being a woman," she said. Accompanied by a lawyer, she went to the Oaxaca electoral authorities and legislative branch, which took up her complaint and her request that the elections in her community be annulled. However, after several weeks of analysis, the authorities told her there was nothing they could do, because the Quiegaloni elections had been held legally, on the basis of traditional "uses and customs." Next, Cruz presented a complaint to the National Human Rights Commission in the capital, Mexico City, where she received support from political parties and legislators. Finally, in early March, Congress issued an exhortation to Oaxaca state lawmakers to carry out legal reforms explicitly stipulating that traditional uses and customs may not be used as a pretext for denying basic human rights guaranteed by the constitution. "I would be satisfied if they approve a decree, law or whatever that would completely eliminate the marginalization of indigenous women from the uses and customs, for all these women, not for me, since I'm no longer interested in standing as a candidate," said Cruz. Indigenous women are the most vulnerable group within the original peoples of Mexico, who are variously estimated to make up between 12 and 30 percent of the country's 107 million people. Their life expectancy is 71.5 years, compared to that of indigenous men, which is 76 years. Illiteracy among indigenous men stands at 18 percent compared to 32 percent among women. And nearly 46 percent of indigenous women have not completed primary school, and only 8.9 percent have completed middle school (lower secondary school). "Indigenous women are the stragglers in every aspect of development, but that will change if we keep up the struggle, not fighting against men, but working together and sharing the wisdom and knowledge each of us have," said Cruz.