Women's Secretariat of the National Council of Rubber Tappers

Female Extractivist Workers in the Brazilian Amazon

The female extractivist worker of the Brazilian Amazon carries, like most women in the world, the double burden of working in the forest as well as raising the children, doing housework, preparing the meals, washing and cleaning. As an extractivist she works as coconut breaker, rubber tapper, nut picker, fisher and small farmer. In many cases these women are the sole provider of their families and single mothers.

The local women’s associations encounter various difficulties in putting women’s rights and equality on the agenda of farmers’ unions and other organizations that continue as actors in a society that treats women as inferior beings both in the private and the public sphere. Lack of access to information, means of communication, health services, education and financial resources further complicate the extractivist women’s situation. As a result, many of them are not even aware of their own rights as human beings and citizens. Even those women organized in community associations and unions encounter massive resistance to their full participation of the political and economic process. Female leaders often find themselves carrying out lower tasks such as cleaning the office, making coffee and preparing meals (very much the same tasks she carries out at home), while decision-making, participation at local, state and federal seminars, assemblies and meetings, and budget planning continues an exclusive “privilege” of men.

The Women's Secretariat - CNS Mulher

The Women’s Secretariat for the Rural Extractivist Woman Worker (Secretaria da Mulher Trabalhadora Rural e Extrativista) was established within and by the National Council of Rubber Tappers (Conselho Nacional dos Seringueiros – CNS) in 1995 to call attention to the innumerous problems these workers encounter just for being women. Finding and inventing solutions within CNS’s mission and lines of action is the primary goal of the Women’s Secretariat. At the same time, the Secretariat aims to strengthen women’s participation in political decision-making and the construction of sustainable development policies for the Amazon.

Since 2000, the Women’s Secretariat, also referred to as CNS Mulher, works three main lines of action, them being

1. Women’s Rights are Human Rights
2. Strengthening Women to Strengthen Communities
3. Institutional Support

CNS Mulher has delegates in all Amazonian states and participates in various working groups of the state and federal government and a national director who is elected every three years at CNS’ tri-annual National Congress.

The Baggage Project

The same year that CNS Mulher defined its main lines of action, it started its project “The Baggage of the Forest Women.” With little resources, lots of patience and a huge amount of energy and creativity they started educating their sisters on health issues, prevention of DST and HIV and family planning. They traveled days in boats, busses and on foot to reach the most distant communities. In wooden huts, on the river shore, under the trees and in their homes they gathered the families to speak about the female body, reproductive health and the correct use of condoms. Inventing games, speaking the simple and colorful language of the forest people, they built bridges, tore down barriers and convinced men and women of the importance of reproductive health for a happy family and community life. Slowly, patiently they’ve won over the communities’ confidence and have begun to talk about women’s rights as well. In the forest, nothing works without the men, so they have to be included in every meeting so to not scare them with “feminist” activities.

What started as a project has become a program. Today, CNS Mulher and “the Baggage” run various projects, including the continuation of health education, the production of educational material on health and family designed specifically for the Amazon audience, workshops on the Brazilian law against domestic violence (“Lei da Maria da Penha”) and communication in the reserves.

A major recent successes of the Secretariat was the election of the first female president of an extractivist reserve: Sandra Regina Pereira Gonçalves, president of the Association of the Marine Extractive Reserve Mãe Grande de Curuçá, who was soon after also elected president to the Central Office of Marine Extractive Reserves.