*Artikkel skrevet av MST som er LAGs samarbeidspartner i Brasil.
After a year of the day when Marielle Franco was murdered, women from MST and MAM makes honor to her memory and ended the journey of fights denouncing Vale's crimes.
On Thursday’s morning, 03.14.2019, about of 400 women denouncing councilwoman's murdered with the company of popular workers, because of a dam rupture in Córrego do Feijão, Brumadinho - MG; the mining violence against women; the threat to the water supply to the population generated by the mining companies and their total environmental irresponsibility, besides the avoidance of the providence and the non-payment of the taxes on the mineral extraction. The women stopped the train carrying the iron ore extracted from the region of the iron quadrilateral, near the center of Sarzedo, city near Brumadinho.
"This year's journey denounces all kind of relations who threaten the lives of women. That's why our theme is 'For the Life of Women, we are all Marielle'. From the execution of Marielle by a parallel militia states, that now is related to the family that assumed the presidency, until the more criminal activities of the mining, all this is part of the same capitalist system. Whoever is in charge of the system does not care about life or people, they want more profits and at any cost. The first people to suffer the consequences of this are us, women." explains the National Director of the MST, Ester Hoffman.
Sarzedo is one of several mining municipalities threatened by dams. The mud from another miner, Itaminas Comércio de Minérios SA, could end up with almost half of the city. Recently, in a public hearing with the company, residents reported problems related to the stability of three dams. The company claims that only B4 dam would have problems. The activities of Itaminas are suspended for an injunction, since February 7, until it carries out a series of adequations and adjustments. According to the report of the Military Police of the Environment "(...)most of the instruments used for such monitoring, the piezometers, were damaged." Also there are no sirens in the areas that could suffer with an eventual breakup.
In this same city, the Jangada mine is located, responsible for 7% of all Vale's extraction. From it came part of the tailings that buried the Córrego do Feijão and killed the Paraopeba's river. There are 308 people killed by Vale, 67 are women and 136 children are now orphaned.
Women's Life and Mining
In Minas Gerais 1.7 million people live in cities where at least one tailings dam is classified as high risk or high potential damage. In contrast to the CFEM levy in R$ in the state that is exorbitant. The municipality of Brumadinho collected of Compensation in 2017 years was R$34.716.823,54. However, this tax does not correspond to the development of the region, which becomes mining dependent only with the consequences of a mining model that is closely linked to predatory capitalist logic, which plundered natural goods and transformed them into commodities.
"The VALE killed my brother. It was a crime that shocked our family and our community. It killed the river Paraopeba that was our source of sustenance, where my brother and our family fished. Our river now cries ore, cries water and cries blood! There's a lot of human blood in the river, it's a lot of sadness", said Izabel André, a resident of Tejuco, community damaged.
What remains for women living in territories where mining companies are installed is violence, prostitution, exploitation of labor, expulsion of territories, contamination of rivers, problems of their own physical and psychological health and of their children, extensive working hours, theft of water and precariousness of life.
They are the first to be impacted, because they are at the tip of systematic discrimination, increased inequality and loss of autonomy as an effect of mining activity. This is why women are also the first to organize to face the mineral model and the radical changes imposed in the territories on their modes of production and reproduction of life.
"We want people to understand that the problem is not the dams, but the mining model, which delivers everything overseas, especially China, to be benefited. Precarious work, pollution, mud, lack of water are left to Brazil. Of the total exported wealth, only 10% is in Brazil. Companies have no responsibility with the country and governments not only turns a blind eye, but also support the unbridled expansion to receive some exchanges", denounced Maria Julia, of the Direction of the Movement for Sovereignty in Mining.
