Facts: Joênia Wapixana
As the first female lawyer from Brazil’s indigenous population, Joênia Wapixana, born in 1973, is used to being in the thick of things. She was also the first Indigenous woman to become a member of Congress.
Another merit is that she has now, as the first person ever from the indigenous population, been appointed to lead Funai.
Funai, Brazil’s agency for the country’s indigenous peoples, was put on hold under right-wing nationalist former president Jair Bolsonaro – something left-wing leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva reversed after taking over as president in January this year.
One of Joênia Wapixana’s most important achievements is when she won a land dispute in Brazil’s Supreme Court, after first taking the case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR).
Sources: Câmara dos deputados site, AFP and others.
Loud excavators carve deep wounds in the previously untouched and life-giving rainforest. Aerial photographs taken from a helicopter show how much devastation the illegal pursuit of gold and other precious metals can cause in a short time. The illegal looting is devastating, not least for the Yanomami people, to which Joênia Wapixana belongs.
Brazil’s newly elected president Lula da Silva is now trying in various ways to put an end to the exploitation that escalated during the rule of the far-right Jair Bolsonaro. Hoping to make a fortune, tens of thousands of gold-hungry profiteers flocked to the state of Roraima in northern Brazil, where the Yanomami region – the country’s largest indigenous reserve – is located.
The Yanomami are a South American indigenous people who live in around 200 different communities in the Amazon rainforest. In Brazil alone, their territory covers around 96,000 square kilometers. The “fortune seekers” must go
Lula da Silva recently announced that the area is to be cleared of illegal fortune seekers and launched a full-scale police and military operation to curb exploitation and protect the indigenous population. The criminal gold diggers are accused not only of devastation of the rainforest, but also of murder and rape against Yanomami people.
As a further step in the struggle, the president has appointed Joênia Wapixana to lead the country’s agency for indigenous peoples, Funai (Fundação nacional dos povos indígenas). As Brazil’s first-ever indigenous female lawyer, she has made it her life’s work to fight injustice. She, if anyone, knows how difficult it is to fight when big and powerful interests are behind the enemy.
It has also proved difficult for the authorities to put a stop to the illegal activities, she states.
“Brazil still does not have a good approach to prevent the illegal gold trade,” Joênia Wapixana told the AFP news agency.
A pilot who worked for the gold prospectors shows off small pieces of the metal that lead to the devastation of the Amazon rainforest. Image from February this year. Seen as “maids”
And she doesn’t mince her words when it comes to the former president. Bolsonaro “encouraged the encroachment of indigenous lands, denied us our rights and contributed to discrimination against indigenous peoples, who were persecuted and criminalized,” she claims, according to AFP.
As a representative of the indigenous population, Joênia Wapixana says it is her mission to correct this. And she is used to tough times and ready to fight.
— In this country, indigenous women are regarded as submissive domestic servants.
She continues:
— But I am here to declare that we are part of this country and we want to be regarded as equals.
Five years ago, Joênia Wapixana was awarded the UN Human Rights Prize. In an interview in connection with the award, she underlined the importance of standing up for the rights of her people. Without land rights, indigenous peoples also have no healthcare, education or financial assets.
“The maintenance of indigenous land areas is therefore also a matter of human rights,” said Joênia Wapixana to the UN human rights body OHCHR.
View of an illegal gold panning camp in the territory of the indigenous Yanomami people. The photo was taken from one of the environmental authorities’ helicopters, as part of documenting and curbing the illegal activity.