They wanted to deny many things to Teresita Antazú López (Pasco, 1960) since her childhood. Climbing trees, learning to read and write, sitting in communal meetings and even having an identity document were, practically, acts of rebellion for the women of the Yanesha people more than 30 years ago. “They told us that they were just things for men. Some of them listened, but others of us were a little disobedient,” she remembers.
It was precisely this “disobedience” that led her to become the first in almost everything: the first woman cornesha —the highest authority of this town— and the first leader in the Interethnic Association of the Peruvian Junglethe main organization of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon in Peru.
This is Antazú’s legacy of rebellion, which has become a symbol of the defense of the rights of indigenous women. Throughout Peruvian history, they have been relegated to care, being responsible for preserving life in all its forms: from seeds and plants to rivers, forests and their own communities. “In the Yanesha culture they have always said that the woman is the one who cooks, washes, raises the children, goes to the farm, while the man is the only one who studies, leaves the community, does the paperwork,” says Antazú. . “We are the ones in charge of transmitting that ancestral knowledge and wisdom from generation to generation.” Paradoxically, this role as caregiver left them out of almost everything. According to him last national census As of 2017, only 4% of indigenous communities had a female leader, while more than 21% of them did not know how to read or write, twice as many as in the case of indigenous men in the Peruvian jungle.
In the Yanesha culture they have always said that the woman is the one who cooks, washes, raises the children, goes to the farm, while the man is the only one who studies, leaves the community, does the paperwork.
Teresita Antazú escaped that statistic. In fact, her leadership story began at age 18 with a typewriter that no man knew how to use in Laguna Raya, the small Yanesha community where she grew up in the Pasco region, in the central jungle. “Everyone said it was impossible for a woman, but that day I wrote a letter without stopping,” says Antazú, who had learned to type when she was a domestic worker outside of her community. From that moment on, she was summoned to all community meetings. “And even though they wouldn’t let me sit with them, I could finally do something else,” she remembers. In the following years, she gained a place in indigenous decision-making spaces. She was a leader in the Federation of Yanesha Native Communities and also in the Union of Asháninkas and Yaneshas Nationalities and in the Regional Association of Indigenous Peoples of the Central Jungle. Since then, she has not stopped working with women. She taught them to write, read and sew. She also trained and spoke to them about rights and even, for the first time, the gender issue.
This work led her to be named, in 1999, the first female leader in the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungle (Aidesep), the main indigenous organization that represents 109 federations and 2,439 communities in which more than 650,000 men and women of the Peruvian Amazon live. “They wanted there to be at least one woman on its Board of Directors and for her to be the one in charge of the women’s affairs area. I will never forget that,” she notes with a laugh.
At that time, Antazú already had six children and a husband who insisted that she not accept that position in Lima, 400 kilometers from the community where they lived. “But I chose to fulfill my commitment to the organization,” she says. In the six years that she lasted in office, she dedicated herself to conducting leadership training, women’s rights and gender issues in the communities of the Peruvian Amazon. She also addressed women’s economic autonomy. “Somewhere they called me Teresita Género,” she says.
Returning to her community, in 2006, she was elected cornesha, the highest authority in the Union of Nationalities of Asháninkas and Yaneshas, a federation that ensures the well-being of these indigenous peoples in the regions of Pasco and Huánuco. “It was something that I never thought possible, there is not even that word in feminine,” she says. “I cried so much with joy because I could finally do something more for our territory and, above all, for the Yanesha women. But then Bagua happened.” She refers to the Baguazo, one of the most serious socio-environmental conflicts in recent decades in the country. In the north of the Peruvian Amazon, on June 5, 2009, hundreds of Wampis and Awajún indigenous people mobilized against a package of legal decrees promulgated without prior consultation and which, according to various experts, was going to directly affect rights and territories. natives.
“We have always defended our territory and we will continue to do so,” explains Antazú about that bloody conflict in which at least 33 people died, including police and civilians. “We don’t do it for money, but because it is our way of living well. That is the difference with people outside who only think about wood, gold, oil, everything is money for them,” he reflects.
After the protests, Antazú was prosecuted for appearing at the press conference in which Alberto Pizango, then president of Aidesep, announced that the indigenous peoples would rise up in insurgency if said decrees were not repealed. “What followed was a nightmare for me, because they took me off the buses, they summoned me to testify and they even gave me an arrest warrant,” details the leader who, after six long years of trial, was declared innocent.
After that episode, I did not plan to return to Lima. But in 2022 she was named responsible for the Aidesep Indigenous Women Program. “I had already promised my children to leave all that, but they themselves told me to do what I think is appropriate,” he says. That year, in addition, she was recognized by the Peruvian State with the distinction of Meritorious Personality of Culturedue to her career as a promoter of the political participation of indigenous women.
Back in office, 15 years later, Antazú saw a change in younger women. “We had left the way open for female participation, but I did not imagine seeing so many leaders in the communities and federations and, furthermore, women studying in schools and universities. However, there are communities where men just want to continue being themselves,” she laments.
For this reason, the indigenous leader continues to work for the rights of Amazonian women. One of her recent achievements has been that the effective and equal participation of women is one of the 15 points of the Aidesep Large Agenda, a list of indigenous priorities that is usually presented to the Peruvian Government. Additionally, he led the creation of the Agenda of the Indigenous Women of the Peruvian Amazon, which seeks to guarantee their effective participation in all decision-making spaces. “Women should be allowed to participate in the decisions of their community, not because they are women, but because they are part of the community,” says who, in addition, asks to listen to the youngest women. “If to achieve that we have to change the statutes of all the communities, we will do it.”
For a few years now, the statutes of some communities have advocated parity between men and women in their chiefdoms and, in fact, the new Aidesep statute requires it in its Board of Directors, made up of three female leaders and three indigenous leaders. “We soon hope to see a female president at the head of the organization. That day will be historic for all the people of the Peruvian Amazon,” she concludes.
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