Zapatistas: The Women's Revolutionary Law

Just after midnight on January 1st, was the 14th anniversary of the Zapatista uprising.

From December 28th 2007 to January 1st, women of the world were invited into the mountains and jungles of Chiapas which are home to the Zapatistas. This revolutionary indigenous movement erupted onto the international stage in an armed uprising on January 1st, 1994, with members calling out “!ya basta!” [enough already!] As the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), implemented on that same New Years Day, continued to decimate impoverished, indigenous campesino communities in Mexico, the Zapatistas began to build autonomous structures in resistance to over 500 years of exploitation, marginalization, and genocide.

The Women's Revolutionary Law:

• Women, regardless of their race, creed, skin color or political affiliation, have the right to participate in the revolutionary struggle, in the place and to the degree their willingness and ability permit.
• Women have the right to work and receive a just pay for their labor.
• Women have the right to decide the number of children they will bear and care for.
• Women have the right to participate in community affairs and hold political office if they are elected freely and democratically.
• Women and their children have the right to PRIMARY MEDICAL CARE in health and food issues.
• Women have the right to education.
• Women have the right to choose their spouses and not to be forced into marriage.
• No woman may be hit or be physically abused, neither by relatives nor strangers. Rape assaults and actual rapes will be severely punished.
• Women may hold leadership positions in the organization and hold military rankings in the Revolutionary Armed Forces.
• Women have all the rights and obligations set by the revolutionary laws and obligations.