Indigenous rights activist, feminist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate (1992), as well as Recipient for UNESCO Prize for Peace Education (1990). Menchú published the rights of Guatemala's Indigenous peoples during and after the Guatemalan Civil War (1960-1996), and promoted Indigenous rights internationally.
Juana Calfunao Paillaléf
Mapuche people, Chile
Calfunao Paillaléf is one of the chiefs of the Mapuche indigenous community of south-central Chile. She is a leader in the struggles of the Mapuche peoples to assert their sovereignty, resist state and corporate violence, and condemn the extraction of natural resources from their ancestral lands. She is a founder of the Chilean non-governmental organization Comisión Ética Contra la Tortura (Ethical Commission Against Torture).
Joenia Wapichana
born 1974, Wapichana People, Amazon, Brazil
First indigenous woman laywer in Brazilian parliament. President of the Defense of Indigenous People’s Rights Commission. Recipient of the United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights, 2018. She fights against illegal mining, illegal lodging, and the systematic violence and violation of human and landrights of all indigenous populations in Brazil, founder and coordinator for Indigenous advocacy and parliamentary front since 2019.
Berta Cárceres
1971-2016, La Lenca People, La Esperanza, Honduras
Environmental activist, indigenous leader, co-founder and coordinator of the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras. She was assassinated in her home, and investigations revealed the involvement of US-trained Hondurian elite troops, and finally in 2021 David Castillo, former president of the hydroelectric corporation DESA, was found guilty of the murder. Her story reveals the interconnectedness of the governmental power, multinational corporations and the systematic violence to all environmentalists and lands rights defenders in the continent. Abya Yala (or “Latin America”) has the higher number of "environmental defenders" murdered for protecting their lands, forests, water supplies and oceans.
Mujeres Zapatistas
Chiapas, Mexico
Zapatista women, elder and young, born before and within Zapatismo are organized as a collective subject, and together since 1990s organised in the fighting against all forms of exploitation. They are part of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), and published in 1993 the “Revolutionary Women’s Law”. They keep sowing seeds, for food sovereignty, autonomy and women emancipation, in Mexico and beyond.
