Washington, D.C., November 25, 2025.– In Latin America and the Caribbean, violence against women defenders is not an isolated event: it is a structural pattern that crosses borders, regimes and territories. Despite the contexts of racism, criminalization of activism, forced displacement, territorial dispossession, and repression, women continue to sustain struggles that are indispensable for democratic life, for racial justice, for the autonomy of their peoples, and for the freedom of those who today face state violence.

This International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights (Race and Equality) recognizes women from Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Mexico and the Dominican Republic, who from different spaces exercise resistance that is born from the body, memory and territory. Their voices face historical inequalities, authoritarian regimes and extractive models, but they do not stop building alternatives of hope, justice and freedom.

Each of them carries out struggles that transform entire agendas even when the risks increase, even when their own country or powerful groups try to silence them, even when violence touches the most intimate. Today we reaffirm: their struggle is indispensable, their strength is unbreakable and their resistance sustains an entire region that continues to bet on life.

Maria do Socorro, Makira`eta – Brazil

For Maria do Socorro, exercising resistance is embodying the ancestral strength of women who have always fought for land, life and memory. Their resistance is a spiritual and political act: they exist when they speak their language, when they transmit the knowledge of the elders, when they participate in rituals, when they demand respect in decision-making spaces and when they denounce the violence that affects Indigenous peoples.

It is sustained by the strength of the forest, of the songs, of the seeds and of the indigenous youth who continue the struggle. Its resistance is woven with the body and the spirit; it is done with love, care and confrontation. Maria do Socorro recalls that when indigenous women come together, their knowledge and voices become a collective power that is impossible to silence.

Yanelys Nuñez, Cuban activist exiled in Spain and coordinator of the Gender Observatory of Alas Tensas

For Yanelys Nuñez, to resist is to exist. It is to sustain oneself in the body of a black, migrant and Cuban woman in a country that, although democratic, does not always understand the depth of exile or the weight of carrying a history marked by censorship and state control.

From Spain, Yanelys carries the distance, the separation from her family, the mourning of truncated projects and the nostalgia of those who were left behind. Even so, she continues to denounce that in Cuba there are no basic guarantees to exercise rights as elementary as expressing oneself, associating or demonstrating. Their resistance is also the living memory of the silenced Cuban feminist movement, of the multiplying exile and of a long history of opposition erased by the regime.

What sustains her is not only her political commitment, but her deepest convictions: the urgency of existing with dignity, the Yoruba spirituality that accompanies her and the strength of political prisoners.

Claudia Vargas, human rights defender and widow of retired Major Roberto Samcam

For Claudia, to resist is to refuse the symbolic disappearance of her husband, Roberto Samcam, victim of a transnational political crime. Her resistance is a radical affirmation: she will not allow the truth to be erased or his name to be diluted in impunity. Every word she utters is memory, denunciation and justice. She does not do it only for herself, but for all the families touched by the state violence that overflows the Nicaraguan borders.

It is sustained by the conviction that justice is a right and trust in human rights mechanisms so that this crime does not go unpunished. Claudia also resists for those who are still persecuted today; she knows that her voice, in naming the truth, protects other bodies at risk. She is accompanied by the support of refugee women, of the collectives, and the certainty of speaking from a country that still does not give up hope.

Rosa María Castro Salinas, activist and Afro-Mexican federal deputy

For Rosa María, to resist is to defend territories, bodies and history in the face of a system that has made Afro-Mexican peoples invisible for centuries. Their resistance simultaneously confronts structural racism, discrimination and an extractivist model that devastates territories and deepens inequalities. In a context where public policies ignore Black communities in the climate fight, resisting also means demanding climate justice with a racial and gender approach.

Its strength comes from a commitment of more than two decades to Afro-Mexican communities, from the voices that defend rivers, seas, mountains and territories, and from young people who understand the climate crisis as a crisis of dignified life. Rosa María argues that the construction of a just future requires Afro-centric public policies and decisions that fully recognize Afro-Mexican peoples as key actors in confronting the environmental crisis.

Patricia Sandoval, coordinator for Mexico of the Continental Link of Indigenous Women of the Americas (ECMIA)

For Patricia, a Purépecha Indigenous woman (Mexico), resistance is to defend life in the face of a model that is destroying territories and directly affecting indigenous women. Climate justice, for her, is not an abstract slogan: it is the urgency of protecting the water, forests and natural resources that sustain her peoples. Resisting implies confronting extractivism, militarization and criminalization, but also affirming the right to decide on land and the collective future.

What sustains it is a spirituality that understands life as a framework: if one falls, they all fall; if one gets up, they all get up. Their strength comes from knowing that each voice that is raised changes decisions and opens paths for others. “Our struggle is not extinguished, it is amplified,” she says.

María Camila Zúñiga, Movimiento MUDE – Colombia

For María Camila, being a diverse and gender-dissident black woman means resisting systems that seek to deny her existence. Her resistance is expressed in the creation of collective tools to survive and transform themselves; in the articulation and meeting that sustains the MUDE Movement, a space that not only accompanies, but also builds community fabric for black women, children and black LGBTIQ+ people. For her, “it will be collective or it will not be”.

What sustains her is the dignified rage, the shared struggles, the processes that are woven together and the love of her sisters. Its strength comes from a profound certainty: nothing is conquered alone. The collectivity is a refuge, but it is also organized resistance to a system that constantly denies them rights, resources, and recognition.

Luz Marina Becerra, Coordinator of Afro-Colombian Displaced Women in Resistance (La Comadre) – Colombia

For Luz Marina, resisting as an Afro-Colombian woman in a context marked by racism, sexism, and classism means raising her voice with dignity for respect, recognition, inclusion, rights, memory, and the territories of Afro-descendant peoples.

She affirms that her struggle is sustained by love, conviction, and the legacy of her ancestors, as well as by the hope that her struggles will transform history so that new generations can grow up in a world of equality, opportunity, and respect for diversity.

Elena Lorac, co-coordinator of the Reconoci.do Movement – Dominican Republic

For Elena, to resist is to defend the life and dignity of Dominican women of Haitian descent in a country where their rights have historically been denied. As part of the Reconoci.do Movement, her struggle is born from the dispossession of nationality that this population lives and that has marked her existence at all levels: without documents, without full recognition and without basic guarantees. And she recalls that this institutional violence affects women more harshly, who also face historical inequalities and deeply precarious conditions in the bateyes.

She is sustained by knowing that her struggle is just and urgent, as well as her commitment to her community, especially to the women who carry the impact of dispossession on their shoulders, and to the families who continue to resist despite structural discrimination.

The voices of these women reveal that resistance is not only a response to violence: it is a way of existence and of the future. From forced exile to the defense of the territory; from the fight against structural racism to the demand for justice in the face of state crimes; from ancestral spirituality to black feminist organization: all these resistances are indispensable to build freer, more dignified and just societies.

At Race and Equality, we are firmly committed to supporting and strengthening these women in their struggles and raising their complaints and demands before the Inter-American and Universal Human Rights Protection Systems.