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Salvadoran Women’s Organizing
Salvadoran women’s organizations date back to the 1930s.94 From the 1930s to the late 1960s, Salvadoran women founded a number of charitable organizations, as well as more political organizations. From the late 1960s to the mid-1980s, the existing political organizations founded a number of affiliated mass-based women’s organizations that were quite successful in incorporating and mobilizing women in large numbers from all parts of El Salvador. During the latter part of the 1980s and early 1990s, these organizations began to professionalize their operations, but unlike in the Palestinian case, all the mass-based organizations had access to donor funding, and grassroots incorporation was often a precondition for the receipt of foreign donor funding.
In 1957, women established the Fraternidad de Mujeres Salvadoreñas (Fraternity of Salvadoran Women), which became one of the first organizations to attempt to incorporate women into the political opposition by addressing their specific needs. Although the organization accepted women from all political backgrounds, it was loosely affiliated with the PCS. The organization produced a monthly magazine called Fraternidad (Fraternity), and also carried out a number of cultural, political, and social activities. In addition to providing secretarial and sewing classes, they started a school for members’ children. The group was also active in the protest movement that supported trade unionists and political prisoners.95 The Fraternidad de Mujeres Salvadoreñas would serve as a model for all women’s organizations founded in the 1970s.96
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, mass-based opposition organizations, known as popular organizations, emerged in El Salvador. These groups were predominately affiliated with the Christian communities or with the PCS. During the latter part of the 1970s and early 1980s, women’s organizations emerged that were more closely affiliated with one of the existing political organizations; these included right-wing organizations in San Salvador, as well as leftist opposition-affiliated women’s organizations that sought to mobilize and address the needs of women in the controlled zones. Finally, during the mid-1980s, more professionalized women’s organizations that were also closely linked with one of the political organizations were established in San Salvador.
During the late 1960s through the early 1970s, the Popular Church and the broader leftist opposition established a number of women’s groups, and encouraged women to participate in non-women’s groups, often targeting laborers. Of particular concern to the Salvadoran Popular Church was the promotion of women’s equality. The Church leaders encouraged women in different communities to join Christian base communities and self-help groups or trade unions. Women became active in a number of organizations established at that time, the most notable of which were the Federación Cristiana de Campesinos Salvadoreños (Christian Federation of Salvadoran Farm Workers)97 and the Comité de Madres y Familiares de Presos, Desaparecidos y Asesinados de El Salvador “Monseñor Romero” (Committee of Mothers and Relatives of the Disappeared, Assassinated and Political Prisoners, COMADRES). COMADRES was established in 1977 by women who were looking for information about relatives who had disappeared, were imprisoned, or killed.98 Among the first of the organizations targeting women in the labor force was the Asociación Nacional de Educadores Salvadoreños (National Association of Salvadoran Teachers), which was founded in 1968. Although not solely for women, approximately 90 percent of the group’s members were women.99 By the early 1980s, Asociación Nacional de Educadores Salvadoreños claimed to represent 20,000 of the 23,000 teachers in El Salvador, of whom only 10,000 were official members since open affiliation carried tremendous risks. In 1969, labor activists founded the Comité de Mujeres Sindicales (Committee of Women Trade Unionists), followed by the Asociación de Mujeres Progresistas (Association for Progressive Women of El Salvador) in 1975. Asociación de Mujeres Progresistas claimed direct continuity with the Fraternidad, and its leadership also concentrated on recruiting women workers in cooperation with the PCS trade unions. In 1978, the FPL founded the Coordinating Committee of Market Women, “Luz Dilian Arévalo,” which organized market women on issues relating to their rights, and set up political meetings to denounce the government. Women also founded the Asociación de Usuarias y Trabajadoras de los Mercados (Association of Market Workers) in 1979, which specifically addressed market women’s working conditions by campaigning against the corrupt market administration.
The organizing during this period concentrated on recruiting women to the unions and helping them organize around their working conditions. Following the crackdown against and persecution of popular organizations in the late 1970s, many of these organizations went underground and were reestablished in the controlled zones in 1981. Unlike the previous generation of women’s organizations, these groups did not target specific populations of women, but rather were concerned with broader mass mobilization. Right-wing groups also founded a number of women’s organizations during this period.
In 1978 and 1979, the FPL established the Asociación de Mujeres de El Salvador (Association of Women of El Salvador, AMES). AMES was one of the largest women’s associations and operated in Nicaragua and Honduras as well as in El Salvador. (See table 5.3, which lists the year in which each of the political organizations established its respective women’s association.) The PRTC and ERP founded women’s organizations along the same lines. In 1982, forty-seven women combatants of the PRTC and members of the popular organizations founded the Asociación de Mujeres Salvadoreña (Association of Salvadoran Women, ASMUSA). By 1984, the persecution of opposition groups made it almost impossible to organize as ASMUSA in El Salvador, so PRTC members founded a new front organization, the Asociación por Mejorar de la Mujer y el Niño (Association for the Improvement of Women and Children).100 During that same year, members of the RN founded the Asociación de Mujeres Lili Milagro Ramírez (Association of Women—Lili Milagro Ramírez), for women in the FAPU.101 Then following the seizure of power by the 1979 Junta, right-wing women’s organizations appeared on the political scene, including the Cruzada por Paz y Trabajo (Crusade for Peace and Work), a broad organization that united all women to the right of the Christian Democrats, and the Frente Femenino Salvadoreño (Salvadoran Women’s Front), which was unofficially affiliated with the right-wing ARENA party.102 Although these organizations were not as involved in mass organization, they did launch high-profile media campaigns through paid advertisements in daily newspapers.103
Following the election of Christian Democrat José Napoleón Duarte in 1984, there was increased political opening in El Salvador. As a result, many of the political-military organizations of the FMLN and the Christian communities were able to operate more openly, and they established their own women’s mass-based organizations, many of them in San Salvador. Most of the women’s mass-based organizations that emerged during this period were founded between 1985 and 1988. The first of these was the Organización de Mujeres Salvadoreñas (Organization of Salvadoran Women, ORMUSA), which was founded in 1985 and affiliated with the MPCS. In 1986, the Instituto de Investigación, Capacitación y Desarrollo de la Mujer “Norma Guirola de Herrera” (Institute of Research, Training, and Development of Women “Norma Guirola de Herrera,” IMU), and the Movimiento Salvadoreño de Mujeres (Salvadoran Movement of Women, MSM) were founded. The IMU was established by university women, and was affiliated with the PCS.104 MSM was created by the midranking PRTC cadre and incorporated its previous organization, ASMUSA. That same year, the FPL founded the Asociación de Mujeres de las Zonas Marginales (Association of Women of the Marginalized Zones), a group dedicated to helping women to access public services and become economically independent.105 In 1987, a group called Christian Mothers, along with women’s committees of the north of San Miguel and Morazàn, founded the Asociación para la Autodeterminación y el Desarrollo de Mujeres Salvadoreña (Association for the Self-Determination and Development of Salvadoran Women, AMS); the organization became affiliated with the ERP.106 Subsequently, in 1988, the PCS founded another women’s organization,