To have a right to the city means to have a right to housing, sanitation, public services, to work and entertainment. In all these issues, women are the most disadvantaged in our society, this affecting their access to the city and their health. The bad quality of the transport is not the only point, they also face the lack of other public services close to their homes, such as nurseries, schools, hospitals and cultural facilities.
The troubles don’t end in the public space: in the domestic environment, they also live with issues such as the great amount of unpaid work, domestic violence and the lack of the right to an adequate housing.
One of four women in Brazil does not have appropriate access to a sanitation infrastructure. Due to their role in domestic activities, the lack of water affects their lives more intensely. 38.2% of the female population lives in homes without sewage collection. 2.5 million Brazilian women do not have a toilet at home. R$13.5 billion would be injected into the Brazilian economy if women had access to sanitation.
out the study “Sanitation and the Lives of Brazilian Women”:
Women are at the forefront of the struggles for housing and land, whether in districts movements, in the favelas or occupations. They are also the main defenders of forests and waters, caring about the nature that guarantees the life on the planet. In everyday politics, they are the leaders who move and defend their communities.
Discover some of its initiatives below:
Casa Almerinda Gama (House Almerinda Gama)
Casa Almerinda Gama is an occupation organized by the Olga Benario Women’s Movement. It’s a space for sheltering, training and empowering women, especially those who have suffered some kind of gender violence, and is located in downtown Rio de Janeiro.
Espaço Gaia (Gaia Space)
Conceived by the birth assistant Laura Torres, Espaço Gaia works with the women of the former Itaoca Dump, in São Gonçalo, Rio de Janeiro. Their purpose is to fight environmental racism, and guarantee both food security and reproductive rights.
Find out about other technologies for tackling environmental racism in Casa Fluminense’s Climate Justice Guide: casafluminense.org.br/guia-justica-climatica
Museu das Remoções (Museum of Removals)
It is a community and territory museum that was born and is being developed in Vila Autódromo, located in the West Zone of Rio de Janeiro. Created by leaders such as Dona Penha, its mission is to keep alive the memory of communities threatened with eviction.
Manas da Lona Preta (Girls of the Black Canvas)
This program hear the diverse women who build the action of the MTST – Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem-Teto (Movement of Homeless Workers) and are at the forefront of urban occupations:
Marcha das Margaridas (Margarida’s March)
It is a national mobilization of women who are rural workers from the countryside and the forest. It has been held since 2000 and is coordinated by the National Confederation of Agricultural Workers (CONTAG) and several partner women’s organizations.
Movimento Orquídeas (Orchid Movement)
MMMO, as it is popularly known, is a social movement organized and led by women in Manaus, Amazonas, whose main banner of struggle is to guarantee the right to the city for all, especially for women.
Tem floresta em pé, tem mulher! (Where there is a standing forest, there are women! )
We need to know and value the work of quilombola, indigenous and extractivist women, who are the ones who take care of our biomes. Get to know the campaign “Where there is a standing forest, there are women!”, by Oxfam, MIQCB (Interstate Movement of Babaçu Coconut Breakers), CNS (National Council of Extractivist Populations) and CONAQ (National Coordination of Articulation of Black Rural Quilombola Communities)
Mulheres em Ação no Alemão (Action of Women at the Comunity Alemão)
MEAA is a group formed in 2015 by women from Favela da Galinha, Complexo da Penha and Complexo do Alemão, favelas in Rio de Janeiro. One of the founders is Camila Santos, better known as Camila Moradia. In 2011, the state government removed the families living there with the promise that they would be given their own homes. Camila got together with the other families and began to put pressure on the government, engaging in the fight for housing.
