Indigenous women march for “healing of the land”

With the theme Native Women: Reforesting Minds for the Healing of the Land, approximately 4 thousand women from over 150 peoples from all Brazilian biomes are participating in the 2nd National March of Indigenous Women, taking place in Brasília until Saturday (Sep. 11).

“We, indigenous women, fight for the demarcation of indigenous territories, and against the liberation of mining and the lease of our land, against the attempt to relax environmental licensing rules, and against the financed arming in rural areas. We are witnessing the dismantling of indigenous and environmental policies,” the protesters’ manifesto reads.

The demonstration is staged by the National Articulation of Indigenous Women Warriors of Ancestry (Anmiga). Expected to take place are hearings, cultural initiatives, and the creation of work groups. Today, they should set out on a walk to Three Powers square (Praça dos Três Poderes) and join the indigenous people who have been in Brasília from approximately three weeks to follow the trial of the so-called Marco Temporal (literally “time mark”)—a thesis according to which indigenous people would only be entitles to the territories they occupied on October 5, 1988, when the Federal Constitution was promulgated, or the areas disputed at this time.

Last week, the Supreme Court brought the stage of oral arguments to an end, and deliberations should be resumed today, as Justice Edson Fachin, rapporteur in the case, is expected to have his vote read out loud.