Dozens of feminist groups in Nicaragua that provide crucial support to vulnerable women have been labelled “foreign agents” and outlawed by the government, meaning they can no longer operate.
Reproductive healthcare services, shelters for survivors of gender violence, and loans and training for peasant women – to cite just a few activities run by feminist groups – are vanishing as a result of the government ban, say activists.
“It’s a delusion of absolute control,” says María Teresa Blandón, a sociologist and prominent feminist who coordinates one of the affected groups, La Corriente. The authorities “know there is critical thinking, a defence for human rights and a democratic vocation in feminist organisations," she told openDemocracy.
