Ms Ramona Margarita Domingo Díaz:

I am grateful for the space. I wish the committee members a good evening.

The presence of mining companies and other extractive industries involved in metal mining and monoculture farming in Guatemala has had environmental, economic, social and human rights impacts that often translate into gender-differentiated impacts. Indigenous and rural women tend to suffer disproportionately, including through the loss of access to water and land, increased care and unpaid work burdens, greater risks of violence, including sexual violence, the criminalisation of women leaders and exclusion from decision-making spaces and economic benefits. These impacts are documented in cases such as those involving the Marlin, Escobal and Fenix mines. Many of our women leaders have been threatened, criminalised and violated for defending life. They have suffered personal threats, persecution, including of their children, defamation, arrest warrants and murder, among many other things. Denying the existence of indigenous peoples in territories where extractive projects are located has been a recurring strategy for intervening against these communities.

The violence perpetrated by public and private security agents against resistance movements complicates the effects and processes of women's struggles. We can see clearly that physical, psychological, economic and emotional violence is expressed in various ways. Extractive companies have had to develop retribution mechanisms to curb the strength of women. We women have felt the negative impacts of extractive companies more harshly. When the water is contaminated, we are the ones who walk further to find it. When crops no longer produce what we need, it is us who care for the children and the elderly with less food. While companies promise development, in reality they leave behind destruction and pain. Our communities have witnesses how these projects arrive with promises of employment and progress but leave behind pollution, social division, territorial conflicts, unemployment, deepening poverty and loss of sovereignty over our territories. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance and urgency for us that the binding treaty on business and human rights be approved and that everyone ensures the international accountability of companies and supports policies that demand respect for human, environmental and gender rights in all extractive activities because protecting our communities also means protecting the life of the planet.