Violencia y resistencias: la mujer afectada por la ruptura de la represa Samarco, Vale y BHP Billiton en Mariana/MG

Débora Diana da Rosa^[1]
Alis Itabirito College
Claudia Mayorga
Leticia Cardoso Barreto^[2]

Federal University of Minas Gerais

Introduction

The gen­der inequa­li­ties are struc­tu­ral in our patriar­chal society, howe­ver, situa­tions as the one occu­rred in Mariana/MG, make visi­ble this wound, sin­ce they accen­tua­te and upda­te the vio­len­ce against affec­ted women, espe­cially, in the eco­no­mic field and at work. In march of, seven ins­ti­tu­tions^[3] lin­ked to the judi­ciary, jointly ela­bo­ra­ted a series of recom­men­da­tions to the mining com­pa­nies res­pon­si­ble for the rup­tu­re of foun­da­tion dam (Samar­co, Vale, BHP Billi­ton and Reno­va Foun­da­tion) refe­rring to the une­qual treat­ment obser­ved in the recog­ni­tion of the suf­fe­red los­ses bet­ween men and women, in the occa­sion it was obser­ved the dis­res­pect­ful treat­ment given to the affec­ted women in the pro­cess of indem­nity. In the­se recom­men­da­tions, among the facts con­si­de­red to be the most abu­sed, are the ways in which women have been invi­si­ble by the com­pa­nies in the pro­duc­ti­ve acti­vi­ties deve­lo­ped by them, and their work is con­si­de­red as ‘com­ple­men­tary’ to the one deve­lo­ped by of their hus­bands, not gua­ran­te­eing them access to repa­ra­tions that are fare to their living con­di­tions prior to dam’s rup­tu­re.

During the first months after the foun­da­tion dam’s rup­tu­re, during a field­work, we obser­ved that the same type of treat­ment by the com­pa­nies was pre­sent during the con­ces­sion of the emer­gen­cies aid^[4], whe­re a ran­ge of infor­mal and rural jobs, and fishing acti­vi­ties for women affec­ted were igno­red. The finan­cial aid card were des­ti­ned to the ‘chief of the family’ man, lea­ving women without eco­no­mic auto­nomy and in posi­tions of finan­cial depen­den­ce. The situa­tion of women affec­ted and the level of vio­la­tion that they have been expo­sed are revea­ling not only of iso­la­ted actions of com­pa­nies in the con­text of the foun­da­tion dam’s rup­tu­re and in the pro­ces­ses of dama­ge ‘repa­ra­tion’, but, mostly, it is about patriar­chal and sexist prac­ti­ces.

The mud ava­lan­che from the tai­lings dam rup­tu­re impo­sed to affec­ted women a life con­di­tion strongly mar­ked by gen­der inequa­lity and vio­la­tions of rights whe­re their forms of fight and resis­tan­ce are immer­se in a con­text of strong eco­no­mic and social oppres­sion.

In the months we were in Mariana/MG^[5], it caught our atten­tion the reports of many women affec­ted that lost their jobs and inco­me sour­ces and that weren’t being recog­ni­zed by the com­pany as vic­tims of the disaster/crime to have access to the monthly finan­cial aid card (emer­gency right) and/or being indem­ni­fied by the lost pro­perty to resu­me their work, in case of seams­tres­ses, lin­ge­rie and cos­me­tics sellers, mani­cu­res, hair­dres­sers, arti­sans, con­fec­tio­nery, bakers, and others. The eco­no­mic ques­tions rela­ted to the con­ces­sion of the finan­cial aid card to the ‘head of the family’ man cau­sed deep impacts in the local fami­lies dyna­mics, lea­ving women in a big­ger con­di­tion of finan­cial depen­den­ce, and rele­ga­ted to hou­se­work, also res­pon­si­ble for care of family mem­bers who beca­me ill due the disaster/crime^[6].

Being recog­ni­zed as an affec­ted per­son star­ted to be a great battle for millions of peo­ple along the Rio Doce and, espe­cially for women, who in the spa­ce of rural com­mu­ni­ties in which they live and wor­ked, exer­ci­sed a series of acti­vi­ties con­si­de­red ‘infor­mal’, but gua­ran­teed the fami­liar sus­tain or sig­ni­fi­cantly con­tri­bu­ted to it.

This invi­si­bi­lity of the affec­ted wor­king women con­di­tion in front of the con­text of the foun­da­tion dam’s rup­tu­re reveals not only the eco­no­mic vio­len­ce of a capi­ta­lism sys­tem, but also, its con­nec­tion with the patriarchy, that upda­tes and rein­for­ce oppres­si­ve and explo­ring sys­tems against women in our society, inter­la­cing inequa­li­ties of class and gen­der (Miguel, 2017).

We obser­ve that patriar­chal prac­ti­ces exer­ci­sed by lar­ge mining and other com­pa­nies are not res­tric­ted to the reality of Mariana/MG, ins­tead, dif­fe­rent authors (Scott, 2012; Ulloa, 2016; Bar­ce­llos, 2013; Barro­so, 2017; Júnior & Bra­sil, 2015) point and denoun­ce about gen­der oppres­sions suf­fe­red by women in face of the cons­truc­tion of major deve­lop­ments, such as dams and mining pro­jects. Bar­ce­llos (2013), empha­si­zes that, in the mat­ter of lar­ge deve­lop­ments, gen­der vio­len­ce is sys­te­ma­tic and should be unders­tood as link bet­ween capi­ta­lism, patriarchy and racism.

Women affec­ted by the lar­ge pro­jects has publi­ci­zed the con­se­quen­ces of the­se deve­lop­ments in their lives. Among the poin­ted ques­tions, we high­light: the non-recog­ni­tion of domes­tic and farm work; absen­ce of women in deli­be­ra­ti­ve spa­ces; the non-qua­li­fi­ca­tion of pea­sant women to urban jobs; the autho­ri­ta­rian and tru­cu­lent way in which com­pany emplo­yees treat and dis­cri­mi­na­te women; the absen­ce of basic ser­vi­ces that unfea­si­ble mobi­li­za­tion and par­ti­ci­pa­tion of affec­ted women; the loss of ties with com­mu­nity and brea­king of family bounds; and the aggra­va­tion of vio­len­ce and pros­ti­tu­tion.

In Mariana/MG, the­se sce­na­rios of vio­la­tion are not much dif­fe­rent, and is inten­si­fied in front of the spe­ci­fi­ci­ties of the mining acti­vity that aggra­va­tes poverty, sin­ce this acti­vity spreads for terri­to­ries and modi­fies its eco­no­mic pro­fi­le. Local eco­no­mies cea­se to have an agri­cul­tu­ral and lives­tock cha­rac­ter as bases and thus lose less mar­ket-based lifesty­les that prio­ri­ti­ze exis­ting com­mu­nity exchan­ges, for exam­ple, from crops in home gar­dens. Women, in the sexual divi­sion of work, gene­rally are res­pon­si­ble for family agri­cul­tu­re (Pau­li­lo, 1985) and end up being spe­cially affec­ted.

Com­prehen­ding the com­ple­xity that evol­ves such the­mes, cros­sed by the con­text of mining, gen­der, patriarchy and racism, we theo­re­ti­cally rely in dis­cus­sions of femi­nism, ove­rall, star­ting from notions of patriarchy, that even thought is a con­cept in dis­pu­te and con­tro­versy insi­de the move­ment (Miguel 2017, Safiot­ti, 1987, Pate­man, 1993, Mayor­ga, 2014), were con­si­de­red in this work as cen­tral in order to reflect about sce­na­rios of oppres­sions expe­rien­ced by women in both public and pri­va­te sphe­res in the con­text of Mariana/MG.

To Pate­man (1993) the patriarchy is a power based in women sexual sub­jec­tion, that acqui­res a pro­per form in moder­nity trough an original/sexual con­tract that ins­ti­tu­ted marria­ge and family, and it is still fra­ter­nal, by the mea­ning of it exists from the male allian­ce whe­re, in order to gua­ran­tee its social and eco­no­mic domi­nan­ce, sub­ject women, and it is the struc­tu­ral basis to a civil capi­ta­list society. Safiot­ti (2004, p. 57–58) also argues that patriarchy “is not a pri­va­te rela­tion, but civil, grants sexual rights to men over women, con­fi­gu­res a kind of hie­rar­chi­cal rela­tionship that inva­des all spa­ces of society, have a mate­rial base, is embo­died, has a power struc­tu­re, based both in ideo­logy and in vio­len­ce”. The­se dif­fe­rent defi­ni­tions of patriarchy may be con­si­de­red as com­ple­men­tary; becau­se the­re is a con­sen­sus bet­ween then that, it is about a sys­tem of struc­tu­ral power of the capi­ta­list society, bran­ches in social ins­ti­tu­tions, in public and pri­va­te spa­ces and aim to main­tain women in subal­tern posi­tions. For this, it is a cen­tral con­cept to unders­tand the rela­tionships bet­ween women affec­ted and mining.

Accor­dingly, to Ulloa (2014) it has been pro­du­ced, in the past years, a lar­ge quan­tity of stu­dies about extrac­ti­ves indus­tries, ove­rall, the mining com­pa­nies, but the gen­der ques­tion has not being cen­tral in the­se inves­ti­ga­tions. Howe­ver, the­se spa­ces are whe­re it is evi­dent the gen­der inequa­li­ties and is obser­ved the growth of vio­len­ce against women. In addi­tion, the author high­lights that the­re is a lack of analy­sis about the effects of extrac­ti­ves in gen­der rela­tions, about vio­len­ce, and in which way it affects the rela­tionships of indi­ge­nous popu­la­tion, afro-des­cen­dants and pea­sants. Na analy­sis about the rela­tion bet­ween extrac­ti­ves and gen­der requi­res a dif­fe­rent view that inclu­des terri­to­rial, ambient, poli­ti­cal, eco­no­mic and social aspects.

Women and the rupture of foundation dam: violence, invisibility and resistance

The sexist prac­ti­ces of the Samar­co, Vale and BHP Billi­ton com­pa­nies in Mariana/MG, ove­rall, when not recog­ni­zing the dimen­sions of eco­no­mic los­ses and the work of affec­ted women expres­ses the public dimen­sion that the patriarchy assu­mes as a power sys­tem, becau­se it is not only about “a form of tra­di­tio­nal domi­na­tion, his­to­ri­cally dated […], but as a oppres­sion sys­tem that remains and is upda­ted” (Rezen­de, 2015, p. 20). The­re­fo­re, the forms of patriar­chal domi­na­tion can be public, ins­ti­tu­tio­nal and collec­ti­ve, having struc­tu­ral, abs­tract and imper­so­nal mecha­nisms of male domi­na­tion, always con­nec­ted to the capi­tal inter­ests. So, it is valid to name as patriar­chal the forms of domi­na­tion prac­ti­ced by the Samar­co, Vale e BHP Billi­ton com­pa­nies when con­si­de­ring the dif­fe­rent treat­ment given to men and women affec­ted after the foun­da­tion dam’s rup­tu­re.

In an inter­view given to the dos­sier “Women in Mud and Fight”, “Rosi­le­ne, for­mer inha­bi­tant of Ben­to Rodri­gues […] explains that women who were “only hou­se­wi­ves” were an excep­tion in Ben­to Rodri­gues. Some of then wor­ked outsi­de the com­mu­nity, espe­cially in the outsour­ced Samar­co. Others would cro­chet or hou­se­clea­ning, some even pick up fire­wood to sell or go to the river to mine gold. Sour­ces of inco­me lost to mud”.

In front of that, further we will dis­cuss about the effects of patriar­chal logics and struc­tu­ral vio­len­ce pre­sent in the foun­da­tion dam’s rup­tu­re, and per­pe­tua­ted by the com­pa­nies in the con­duc­tion of the pro­cess of “repa­ra­tion” in the daily lives of women affec­ted, using three analy­sis cate­go­ries 1) Rela­tion of women with the affec­ted com­mu­nity; 2) Impacts in the women’s lives after the foun­da­tion dam’s rup­tu­re; 3) Expe­rien­ces of fight and resis­tan­ce.

Relation of women with affected communities

As a star­ting point, we high­light that the­re are dif­fe­rent expe­rien­ces of being a women that are cros­sed by dimen­sions of class, skin color, sexua­lity, edu­ca­tio­nal con­di­tion, and work, and per­ched by expe­rien­ces in their ori­gi­nal com­mu­ni­ties. Thus, to com­prehend who are the women affec­ted by the foun­da­tion dam’s rup­tu­re in Maria­na, it is neces­sary to approach a little bit more of daily aspects of com­mu­nity life of women from the affec­ted regions of Ben­to Rodri­gues, Para­ca­tu de Cima, Para­ca­tu de Bai­xo, Pedras, Bor­bas, Cam­pi­nas, Pon­te do Gama and Camar­gos, con­si­de­ring the dis­tricts of the city of Maria­na the main locus of this work.

The com­mu­nity of Ben­to Rodri­gues, unli­ke the other com­mu­ni­ties, had a less rural cha­rac­ter, and from the obser­va­tion per­for­med during field­work, it was pos­si­ble to per­cei­ve a grea­ter diver­si­fi­ca­tion in the mat­ter of occu­pa­tions and deve­lo­ped work by women. Many wor­ked in outsour­ced com­pa­nies of Samar­co, per­for­ming clea­ning jobs, or wor­ked in Maria­na at the com­mer­ce. In Ben­to also had women invol­ved with com­mu­ni­ta­rian asso­cia­tions for the pro­duc­tion of “biquinho” pep­per jam, other invol­ved in craft­work, can­dies and snacks, or sell clothes and cos­me­tics in the neigh­borhood. Being a dis­trict away from the most cen­tral areas of the city of Maria­na, the­re were also acti­vi­ties such as lives­tock family and gro­wing home gar­dens (acti­vi­ties carried out mainly by women).

Other dis­tricts will be clas­si­fied here as rural, clas­si­fi­ca­tion used by the affec­ted them­sel­ves to refer to the pla­ce whe­re they lived: “I was from the country­si­de and I lived in rural zone” were expres­sions fre­quently heard from the affec­ted of Pedras, Bor­bas, Pon­te do Gama, Lower Para­ca­tu, Cam­pi­nas, Upper Para­ca­tu and Camar­gos, during the field­work. In the­se loca­tions, the pre­do­mi­nan­ce of work was in agri­cul­tu­re and milk pro­duc­tion. In the mat­ter of fema­le work, they equally work in family agri­cul­tu­re and milk pro­duc­tion. In addi­tion, it was pos­si­ble to tes­tify the exis­ten­ce of women that exer­ci­sed mining acti­vi­ties, cot­ton first har­vest and sea­so­nal wor­kers in har­vest, such as the annual cof­fee har­vest in the dis­trict of Para­ca­tu.

It should be noted that the agri­cul­tu­ral acti­vi­ties carried out by women in works which, in many times, were unfea­si­ble, such as the hou­se gar­den gro­wing, lives­tock family, con­tri­bu­ted greatly for food and family eco­nomy, sin­ce in pro­du­cing, they stop­ped buying various foods­tuffs. “In the country­si­de, the land is everybody’s boss, the­re isn’t unem­ploy­ment, I plan­ted everything I nee­ded, even give to my chil­dren to bring to the city, didn’t have to buy eggs, fruits, vege­ta­bles, chee­se. We always had it, and now we must buy everything” (Daily field excerpt, 07/05/17).

Impacts in women’s lives after the foundation dam’s rupture

We will cen­ter our analy­sis in two ques­tions that appea­red more fre­quently in women’s reports during the field­work. One of them is the impact of denial or invi­si­bi­lity of the work per­for­med by women in com­mu­ni­ties in which they lived befo­re the dam’s rup­tu­re. The second is about the con­si­de­ra­ble increa­se in the demand for tasks of care that relied on women after the dam’s rup­tu­re, becau­se the arri­val of fami­lies to the city of Maria­na implied in the loss of auto­nomy of many chil­dren and elder peo­ple, besi­des ill­ness.

Women exer­ci­sed a variety of work acti­vi­ties in the affec­ted com­mu­ni­ties, some con­si­de­red for­mal, that is, had regis­te­red in a work regis­ter, and others infor­mal or auto­no­mous without regis­ter. It is abo­ve all in the lat­ter that the grea­test dif­fi­culty for women is to pro­ve that they have lost work and inco­me. From a com­ple­te igno­ran­ce of the infor­mal and rural local dyna­mic of pro­duc­tion and inco­me gene­ra­tion, the Samar­co, Vale and BHP Billi­ton com­pa­nies denied for many women the recei­ving of the monthly finan­cial aid card, which gene­ra­ted a series of effects of auto­nomy loss and a big­ger eco­no­mic depen­den­ce of women. The inco­me loss also pro­vo­ked the need of incor­po­ra­ting other work acti­vi­ties, such as clea­ners and nan­nies to obtain inco­me, jobs that they did not exer­ci­se prior the dam’s rup­tu­re.

The impacts cross mate­rial ques­tions, sub­jec­ti­ve impli­ca­tions gene­ra­ted by the auto­nomy loss, inco­me and rup­tu­re of ways of life are trans­la­ted also in psy­cho­so­cial suf­fe­ring and a hea­vier over­load in daily acti­vi­ties to women. This over­load is due both becau­se of the search for new ways of work for acqui­ring inco­me and due the rai­sing of demands of care of depen­dent peo­ple (chil­dren or elder) or of the ones that have got ill due the rup­tu­re and remai­ned under women’s res­pon­si­bi­lity.

Accor­dingly to Por­to (2008, p. 288), the natu­ra­li­za­tion of fema­le acti­vi­ties in the domestic/private sphe­re end up to crys­ta­li­ze the idea that every kind of care requi­red for a family mem­ber is per­for­med by a woman. The­re­fo­re, it is an obli­ga­tion for her to accom­pany the ill, parents and chil­dren, in health treat­ments and, in the case of the lat­ter in school reunions and other social life events.

Research per­for­med in the end of 2017 focu­sed in the men­tal health of the affec­ted inha­bi­tants of Mariana/MG veri­fied high pre­va­len­ce of psy­chia­tric disor­ders rela­ted to stress in affec­ted popu­la­tion. Besi­des a depres­sion rate of 28,9% in the popu­la­tion of indi­vi­duals affec­ted by the foun­da­tion dam’s rup­tu­re in Maria­na, which cha­rac­te­ri­zes a pre­va­len­ce five times higher than the one des­cri­bed by the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO) for Bra­zi­lian popu­la­tion eva­lua­ted in 2015 (Neves et al, 2018). This research, although hasn’t been con­si­de­red as an cen­tral ele­ment of analy­sis gen­der dif­fe­ren­ces, pre­sents as pre­cur­sory fac­tors for the deve­lo­ping of men­tal disor­ders in disas­ter situa­tions, such as Mariana’s, the fact of being fema­le and the lack of social sup­port.

Experiences of Struggle and Resistance

It is neces­sary to high­light that the sto­res of affec­ted women are, ove­rall, sto­ries mar­ked by oppres­sions, but not only that. If by one side is nee­ded to make fea­si­ble the daily effects of patriar­chal logics and of the capi­ta­list explo­ring sys­tem pre­sent in the foun­da­tion dam’s rup­tu­re, and in the effects that are drag­ged in affec­ted women’s lives, it is essen­tial to tell the fights and resis­tan­ces that women have been under­ta­ken to com­bat the social and gen­der inequa­li­ties, and for repa­ra­tion.

We find that, for women affec­ted in the public/politic aspects, resis­ting means figh­ting against inequa­li­ties in the private/familiar envi­ron­ment. In addi­tion, of the need of recog­ni­tion of their con­di­tion of women/workers that had/have their rights denied. The recog­ni­tion of women as sub­jects to rights, who have lost and are affec­ted, is not a sim­ple pro­cess for many women with whom we had con­tact. Many of them spo­ke about the lear­ning pro­cess of com­prehen­ding that “affec­ted is when the mud mes­ses with your life and not just your hou­se” (Daily field excerpt, 06/14/2016). The­se ques­tions are trans­la­ted in fights, resis­tan­ce and has been cir­cums­cri­bed the social and poli­ti­cal pla­ces of women in local con­texts and in wider social arti­cu­la­tions.

Women, in their pro­ces­ses of par­ti­ci­pa­tion and resis­tan­ce for the repa­ra­tion of dama­ges, claim other con­cerns that go beyond repo­si­tio­ning of imme­dia­te mate­rial goods. During the field­work, it wasn’t uncom­mon hea­ring from many women ques­tions not only about the lost mate­rial goods (hou­ses, ani­mals, work tools, cars), but ove­rall, con­cerns rela­ted to lost play areas, sour­ces of water, reli­gious cele­bra­tions, chur­ches, the children’s school, the health sta­tion.

Whether it is in the strug­gle to keep ali­ve the memory and his­tory of the affec­ted com­mu­ni­ties up to the strug­gles to repair what has been des­tro­yed, women’s par­ti­ci­pa­tion has been fun­da­men­tal and are expres­sed in an impor­tant form of poli­ti­cal action. Whether orga­ni­zed in move­ments or not, their form of par­ti­ci­pa­tion influen­ces the pos­si­bi­lity of trans­for­ming social and gen­der hie­rar­chies, in the ten­sio­ning to ‘for­mal” spa­ces of poli­ti­cal orga­ni­za­tion of the affec­ted, in the cons­truc­tion of more equal rela­tions and in the rup­tu­re of sub­jec­ted con­di­tions and eman­ci­pa­tory pos­si­bi­li­ties.

Final Considerations

Finally, prac­ti­ces exer­ci­sed by the mining com­pa­nies in the treat­ment refe­rent to the repa­ra­tion to women affec­ted by the foun­da­tion dam’s rup­tu­re in Mariana/MG are sexists and patriar­chal, and upda­tes inequa­li­ties and gen­der oppres­sions over women, having as appea­ring con­se­quen­ces the invi­si­bi­lity and muting of women in both public and pri­va­te spa­ces.

Howe­ver, even though in a con­text of strong eco­no­mic and gen­der oppres­sion, resis­tan­ces are built in infor­mal poli­ti­cal spa­ces and in the own rela­tionships of soli­da­rity that the affec­ted women rai­se to pur­sue a repa­ra­tion for their los­ses, besi­des the fights in defen­se of stric­ken terri­to­ries, to main­tain ali­ve the memory and cul­tu­re of their com­mu­ni­ties. This con­tri­bu­tes to break up with posi­tions of social sub­mis­sion, re-appro­pria­ting of their his­tory and giving a new mea­ning. The­se resis­tan­ces are insert in a poli­ti­cal hori­zon of cons­truc­tion another model of society, humanly fai­rer and more eman­ci­pa­tory.

References