Breaking Barriers: The Political Empowerment of Bolivia’s Indigenous Women

Photograph Source: Hugo Quispe – CC BY-SA 3.0

Remigia Ferrel Vallejos, a Bolivian union executive from Chimoré, in the coca-grower Chapare region, isn’t nostalgic for the old days. “Before there was a lot of fatalism. Many times, in meetings I was told, ‘women don’t count, the man has to come,” she explains. “That’s how it was; we didn’t even have the right to speak, or keep our own names, or hold title to land. Now it’s almost 50-50, we have rights, and we participate. We have authorities...