Ananea, Peru – November 2021
With the aim of closing the gaps between men and women and promoting gender equality, the Central of Cooperativas Minero Metalúrgicos de Puno Ltda. – CECOMIP created its committee for gender equality, becoming the first organization of this sector in Peru to have this group.
The artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector still has many challenges in the face of gender equality, where women remain a minority. According to the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics (INEI) in 2016, of the seventeen countries in Latin America, Peru is among the 10 countries with the greatest challenges in gender equality. Also, sexual violence and femicide reveal a problem that affects the rights of Peruvian women. They live in a situation of vulnerability to the risk of suffering acts of violence that attempt against their fundamental rights.
For that reason, the creation of this committee and the implementation of gender policies by CECOMIP represents an advance and an example for other mining organizations, so that women have greater representation, their voices are also heard, and have access to the same rights that the men’s.
Members and associates of the Mining organization cecomip, during a workshop of gender equality.
“It is a challenge for all ASM organizations to break with the models and paradigms that have been instilled in us at school and in society: that women and men have different responsibilities, that women are at home with the children and men are at work. We need to close those gaps to build a more equitable world” – Adrian Ahumada, member of the Cecomip’s board of directors.
Women leaders
CECOMIP is a mining organization certified with the Fairmined standard since 2016. In total, the cooperative has 199 members, of whom 58 are women, which represents an important participation of the female gender, compared to other mining organizations.
As the current president, Eugenio Calcina Quispe, says, women have always been present at CECOMIP in different areas: warehouse, kitchen, accounting consultancy, nursing and presidency, among others. “Their work has to stand out, they have their place in the organization, they have always participated, that is why we are proud,” he says.
The gender committee and the implementation of more equitable policies represent the formalization of the participation that women already had in the cooperative.
A jewellry made up of women
Members of CECOMIP and their daughters make up the Divinas en brillo de oro group, a group of approximately 10 women who came together with the aim of creating their jewelry. This has been possible thanks to the support of the organization’s managers, who recognize and praise their work. This is another example of the support that CECOMIP provides to the women of the organization.
Nancy Coaquira is the leader of this group of women jewelers and, in addition, now she is also the president of the gender equality committee of CECOMIP. Its objective will be to make visible topics of interest that men still cannot recognize. “We are equal, we have the same rights, men and women,” he says.
Gender violence prevention workshops
To support the implementation of gender policies in CECOMIP, the Alliance for Responsible Mining has developed awareness-raising spaces for partners on gender violence prevention and the vindication of women’s rights, an opportunity to reflect and recognize physical and psychological violence that men still exert on women and that are often invisible or not recognized.
These activities are part of the Charpitas Inclusivas project, developed by the Alliance for Responsible Mining in Peru thanks to funding from the Ensemble Foundation and the Ford Foundation.
Interested in becoming part of the Fairmined Initiative? contact us here.
