Tarcila Rivera Zea (born 24 December 1950 San Francisco de Pujas, Ayacucho, capital of the province of Huamanga, Peru) is a Quechua activist, member of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues since her election on 5 April 2016 and awarded with the Visionary Award granted by the Ford Foundation in 2011 for her fight of Indigenous rights
In countries where children have “disappeared”, grandmothers stood up to demand justice. In areas ravaged by AIDS, HIV-positive mothers replaced stigma with hope. In homophobic societies, lesbian victims of rape survived and organized […] As long as one woman’s human rights are violated, our struggle is not over.
We want to be heard so that we can create policies that include us, but we also want to be supported. We are not pleading for help, we can contribute our support. We want an investment. We don't want a donation. We want investment in the development of our skills, of women and girls, young people and young indigenous populations.”
I am very hopeful that the changes that are taking place now will pay off for the new generation. Moreover, we are at this point thanks to the efforts of several generations of indigenous leaderships, and because we have found allies in institutions and we have the support of well-known figures and sometimes, even politicians had supported us along the way. Thus, the strategy chosen by our elders about using the UN Charter to claim our rights has been effective.
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