8th La Via Campesina conference: we continue to build alliances
From December 1 to 8, the 8th conference of La Via Campesina – LVC was held in Bogotá, Colombia, under the slogan “In the face of global crises, we build food sovereignty to guarantee a future for humanity”.
The conference was attended by more than 500 delegates from 81 countries, from 182 peasant organizations. Among them were the World March of Women members who are organized in La Via Campesina organizations in various regions. There were also militants from the World March of Women who were invited to the conference as an allied movement to deepen our relations and joint struggles. The first days of the conference were marked by the 5th LVC Youth Assembly, the Men’s Space Against Patriarchy, and the 6th Women’s Assembly.
At the women’s assembly, Daya Laxmi, one of the new members of the International Committee of the World March of Women, representing the Asian-Pacific region who’s also the treasure of the All Nepal Peasants’ Federation (ANPFa Nepal), spoke about the situation of women in Asia at the table “Contextualizing the presence and struggle of LVC women in the international context”. Also at the Women’s Assembly, Yildiz Temürtürkan international coordinator of the World March of Women, gave an important speech on popular feminism and the feminist economy at the space “La Via Campesina, Peasant and Popular Feminism, Food Sovereignty and Overcoming Violence”. Through the presence of Yildiz, the WMW also took part in the table “Articulating alliances towards food sovereignty & Nyeleni”, which aimed to establish the process of organizing the Nyeleni forum that will take place in 2025 in India.
All of these spaces have been essential to deepening the alliance between the World March of Women and La Via Campesina, especially with regard to the valorization of women in the movement and the affirmation of peasant and popular feminism and Feminist Economics as our tools in the struggle for a social transformation that dismantles all systems of oppression in an articulated way.
In its 30 years of existence, La Via Campesina has been a fundamental movement in the construction of food sovereignty around the world, in guaranteeing peasants’ rights, in the struggle for agrarian reform, and in another model of relationship with nature. The conference was marked by various expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian people and other people living in situations of war and armed conflict. As an allied movement, we continue working with La Via Campesina to build a society with other relationships between people and nature.