Velkommen til Bjerkvik

Peasant women rise in Nicaragua

Helle Berggrav Hanssen

“Is ill-treatment of women something that happens in your community or in other communities?” Francis Obid, the facilitator, asks the participants. “In all the communities”, the women reply.  The women share experiences of neglect, abuse, violence, and murders in their communities. “We have to talk about it”, one woman says, “talking about it is liberating”. There are many voices in the room, many opinions to be shared.

 “But be careful when you start talking to your partners”, one of the older women says, “many women have returned from such meetings, eager to speak with their husbands and change their behaviors, only to be met with even more violence”. She continues: “Remember, we’re sleeping with our enemies”.

We are invited to attend a workshop with women in Santa Clara, a small village in Nueva Segovia, close to the border with Honduras. The workshop on violence against women is organized by ASOMUPRO, Association for women producers, one of Norwegian People’s Aid’s partners. Around thirty women are gathered; most of them young women, some carrying babies on their laps, but also some older, grey haired women. All of them come from even smaller villages around Santa Clara, working their little plots of land, growing beans, maize and other vegetables.

The facilitator picks up her guitar and sings an old revolutionary song where ‘people’ is exchanged with ‘women’: “We are the new women, beginning on our walk….” and everybody sings along.