This is a really historic opportunity for meaningful cross-border solidarity: the first case on the criminalization of abortion that comes before the Inter-American Human Rights Court.

We know that anti-rights actors are likely to flood the Court with their own opinions. We hope you'll make your voice heard in support of women's rights.

En el marco del “Día Internacional de la Mujer Afrolatinoamericana, Afrocaribeña y de la Diáspora'', las afrofeminas levantan sus voces para exigir sus derechos y revisibilizar sus luchas. Esto no quiere decir que durante el resto del año callen, más bien, es en esta fecha que confluyen en un mismo sentir en pro de su etnicidad. 

Paulina Cruz Ruiz, from the Rabinal, Baja Verapaz region of Guatemala, was an ancestral Maya Achí (Indigenous) authority and a human rights defender.

She was actively involved in community organizing and resistance, including legal measures against mining projects on Indigenous territory, projects that would severely affect and damage the socio-environmental fabric.  

Rosane Santiago Silveira was affectionately known as Rô Conceição. A Brazilian environmental and human rights activist, she fervently fought to protect the environment where it was most threatened. 

This included defending it on the island of Barra Velha, where it was endangered by oil exploration, as well as safeguarding it by campaigning against land-grabbing and expansion of eucalyptus plantations in Bahia State, where Rosane was a member of the Cassurubá Extractivist Reserve Council.

“If we stay quiet they kill us and if we talk [they kill us] too. So, let’s talk.” -  Cristina Bautista, 2019

Mirna Teresa Suazo Martínez was part of the Garifuna (Afro-descendent and Indigenous) Masca community, living on the North Caribbean coast of Honduras. She was a community leader and a fervent defender of the Indigenous territory, a land that was violated when the National Agrarian Institute of Honduras gave territorial licenses to people outside of the community. 

Nilcéa Freire was a Brazilian feminist activist, politician and academic. A persevering advocate for women’s rights and those of underrepresented minorities in the country, her life and work carried a long history of struggles and victories.

"While resisting we have to keep pushing for progress, and what we can achieve at this time, in my view, will be through the stupendous organization of young white women, and especially black women, in all of the state capitals and large cities of Brazil." - Nilcéa Freire

Rosa Candida Mayorga Muñoz was a Guatemalan social worker, union leader and labor rights defender. She was affectionately called Rosita and she inspired change.