Against the neoconservative and neoliberal offensive in Latin America and the Caribbean
The members of the CLACSO Working Group Feminisms, resistances and emancipatory processesWe, Latin American and Caribbean feminists and researchers, at the close of 2023, express our deep concern about the harmful effects of the neoconservative and neoliberal offensive that, using the electoral route, one of the mechanisms of democracy, is perverting constitutional orders and co-opting States to dismantle the advances in access to justice and recognition of human rights built in the last seventy-five years, as a result of the struggles of social, feminist, indigenous and Afro-descendant movements.
Several crises are undermining the foundations of coexistence in most Latin American and Caribbean countries, the most serious this year being: the significant increase in migration flows that are saturating borders, as a result of poverty, political conflicts, and the climate crisis; ungovernability due to pressure from right-wing or fascist groups on legislative and judicial institutions, as in the case of the tenacious opposition to the Boric government in Chile and the initiatives to change the Chilean Constitution; the increase in political prisoners and people exiled for their dissenting positions, as in the cases of Nicaragua and El Salvador, where a hardline policy has been applied; the politicization of the judiciary, emblematically exemplified by Guatemala, where the right wing has resorted to all means, seemingly legal, to prevent the popular will from being fulfilled; and the plundering of natural resources that has been perpetrated throughout Latin America and which was decisively rejected by the Panamanian people.
The most severe situation is unfolding in Argentina, where, with the arrival to executive power on December 10th of a self-proclaimed anarcho-capitalist liberal group led by Javier Milei—an openly misogynistic, racist, and anti-poor individual—a series of regressive measures have been enacted, with serious economic repercussions and a repressive impact on the rights of the majority of the population. These measures aim to dismantle the institutions created to expand the exercise of rights and concentrate all state power in the hands of the president, while unrestrictedly favoring the private and transnational sectors.
In response to these processes, social, trade union, feminist and human rights movements have taken to the streets in an act of resistance and creativity to confront the coup-plotting and dictatorial intentions of the Milei government.
We stand in solidarity with the Argentine people and their struggle, with the Central American peoples and their tenacious resistance against authoritarianism and neoliberal greed.
We demand an end to the repression against our people, the restoration of democratic institutions, and the protection of the human rights of those of us who live in Latin America and the Caribbean.
For respect for human rights and for democratic and supportive societies!
January 3, 2024
CLACSO Working Group
Feminisms, resistance and emancipation
This text expresses the position of CLACSO Working Group on Feminisms, Resistance and Emancipation and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.
