One sexual encounter led to 17-year-old Immaculata Casimero becoming pregnant for someone she had no real relationship with and this experience is one of the driving forces behind her work today in the indigenous community promoting women’s empowerment and women’s rights.
While she does not blame her mother for that teenage experience, Casimero pointed out that her mother taught her about many things, but sex was not one of them; instead she was given a book to read. She was quick to add though that both of her parents played a big role in who she is today. But she believes her lack of knowledge drove her to experiment and part of what she does today is help women understand that having sexual conversations with their daughters and sons is not prohibited but rather it prepares them for the world at large.
“In our communities it is hard for parents to actually discuss the topic of sexual intercourse with their children,” Casimero told the Stabroek Weekend in an interview from her village in Region Nine.
Her son was born with medical complications and he died a year after he was born. Looking back, Casimero does not regret the experience as she believes it played a tremendous part in who she is today: a warrior for women’s rights in indigenous communities. “I think women play important roles in our communities. I always say we are the backbone of our communities. Without us, I don’t think the community would be able to go on so I would always say our voices are important and we need to amplify our voices, especially about the issues that affect us as women…,” Casimero said.
Now a mother of two girls and two boys, Casimero is the communications officer for the South Rupununi District Council (SRDC) and one of the driving forces behind the council’s women’s arm, the Wapishana Women’s Movement.
The SRDC is the representative body of the 21 Wapichan villages in the South Rupununi, Region 9. It exercises collec-tive authority and stewardship over Wapichan wiizi (territory), represents its people on issues of common concern, and coordinates collective decision-making and action.
Casimero was also part of the inaugural Rupununi Indigenous Women’s Con-ference, held at Bina Hill Institute in the North Rupununi in January last year under the theme “Empowering and Strengthen-ing Indigenous Women: Working together for a green future”. Coming out of the conference was the historic Bina Hill Declaration that called out village leaders, regional leaders and policy makers, identifying their responsibilities and what needed to be done to assist in improving the lives of indigenous women. The declaration also spoke to the women’s collective responsibility in maintaining their traditional culture, language and knowledge.
Casimero is now on a fellowship with Conservation International, which focuses on the environment and her project is advocating for the protection of the main headwaters in the South Rupununi.
Village council election
While her work in this sphere is fairly recent, it is where Casimero believes she belongs and she foresees years of work in the area as she is passionate about improving the lives of indigenous people, especially the women. It was in 2014 that she returned to her home village of Aishalton after living for many years in Lethem; she worked on contract with the Guyana Elections Commission and the Bureau of Statistics and shortly after she was elected as a village councillor.
This election started the groundwork for what she does today as she also became the secretary of the council for the period of three years. It was in those three years she became involved with the SRDC and because she attended various meetings she became more acutely aware of the issues facing the indigenous population.
Being invited to a national consultation on domestic violence in late 2018 that also opened her eyes and “it kinda make me start thinking of all the problems that we women face,” she said.
“I realised then that there was no kind of programmes and information coming to our communities within the south Rupununi…”
Casimero and a councillor from another community reported on the conference to the leaders of the SRDC and they recommended implementing workshops and training for women in the various communities to engineer a movement within the Wapichan territory. The conversations began.
Being invited to various national gender conversations further intrigued the Ashalton resident and she developed the passion for the work she is doing today.
In 2019, the women within the SRDC decided to submit a shadow report on women in the indigenous community to the Committee on the Elimination of Dis-crimination against Women (CEDAW).
“I worked on it many nights over a month, my time was dedicated to that shadow report and we submitted it to CEDAW on time,” she said.
She was selected to travel to Geneva, Switzerland to submit the report and even though there were some initial hiccups with getting the required visa (she had to walk over an hour just to get internet connection) she eventually made the trip.
The experience further motivated her and she returned to Guyana with even more vigour to advance women’s rights within the Wapichan territory and together with other women and funders, a Rupununi Indigenous Women conference was organised early last year and it brought together women from various communities.
It was following that local conference that the inaugural Rupununi Indigenous Women’s Conference was convened followed by the Indigenous Leader’s Women Conference in Georgetown and at that forum the shadow report to CEDAW was mentioned and she was approached and advised that she could apply for funding to further the work in the area.
She noted that a lack of funding was one of the reasons she could not advance the agenda of improving the lives of women as it called for resources that were not available at the time. All of that changed when she followed through and applied for the grant from the Women’s Voice and Leadership Equality fund which was being funded by the Canadian Government; it was a success. Around the same time, she also got the opportunity to do a course in human rights and international advocacy skills at the Indigenous Women’s Leadership School out of the Columbia University in New York through the International Indigenous Women’s Forum.
“I keep saying these are the things I want to do in my community because women have not been able to be trained about their rights, even simple things like in the laws they have never been trained on the constitution and so on. So all of that I wanted to change…,” she noted.
Another grant was given and Casimero said through the SRDC they combined the two grants and managed to conduct training in seven communities last year into this year. The initiative started with virtual training of women from different communities (inclusive of herself) and they then became the core facilitators within the Wapichan Women’s Movement. The core trainers then went into the seven communities to conduct the training of women and focus was placed on gender concepts, which was a new topic, introduction to women’s rights, children’s rights and inclusion, among others. And, importantly, the local languages were used as far as possible.
“As women we discussed, we shared, it was a wonderful experience to have these women in the communities. I learnt from them, they learnt from me and it was an open discussion and I would say it was a space for women because there were no men…,” she said.
There are now women’s groups in all the communities. While there are village councils, they may not have the knowledge to deal with certain issues that affect women and children and the members of the groups would seek the core facilitators’ advice on how to address certain matters. The core facilitators also seek the assistance of the child protection officer in the region and together with the village councils matters are addressed.
The leadership grant is being disbursed over a three-year period and Casimero plans to have training in the other 14 communities that fall under the SRDC.
Issues
Casimero revealed that during the period they went into the seven communities, issues of teenage pregnancy and domestic violence topped the list across the communities.
“Those are things that are very prevalent in our communities and I think it is because of education… parents not having the education, not in the means of not finishing school but not
having the right information on what they should do and how they should deal with the problems,” she pointed out.
They zeroed in on statutory rape and Casimero noted that because a lot of times parents are away farming to earn a living they are unaware of what is happening to their children until it is too late. They impressed on the mothers the need to develop relationships with their children and to have conversations with them so that the cycle can be broken.
In the area of domestic violence, a lot of the time alcohol is a contributing factor and Casimero believes men need to be educated, which was pointed out during the training. The village councils called for men to be involved in the workshops but she had to sadly inform them that it was a women-only forum as stipulated by the funding, but also to help women speak more freely about the issues affecting them.
“I think our indigenous women really need education, need the education that women have rights and that they as men also need to do the right thing,” she noted.
She recalled growing up with her father whom she never saw drunk or quarrelling with her mother “for food or to do chores; he was not that kind of man”.
Her mom was also very active in her and her brother’s schooling until Casimero moved to Georgetown to attend the Central High School.
Because of her experience — getting pregnant at a young age — Casimero said she is always in conversations with young girls helping them to understand that is not the path they should take. She now has a 17-year-old daughter and she tells her the same thing.
“It is not about not making a mistake but about being ready at the right time..,.” she said.
And using herself as an example, she also tells them that it just takes one sexual encounter to get a woman pregnant and she tries to maintain an open relationship with her daughters so they can discuss anything with her.
Casimero has been with her present partner for some 20 years, but she said she “chose not to get married, I have my reasons.”
