Flora Gutiérrez Gutiérrez, Mexico
Master’s in Criminal Law Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Penales, Mexico 2011-2013
Originally from a remote indigenous community in the Zapoteca region of Oaxaca, Flora’s family struggled with poverty throughout her childhood. Although she helped her parents farm from a young age, had little to eat, and walked far to school, Flora studied diligently. Her interest in women’s rights is rooted in her father’s encouragement to study hard; he wanted his children—even his daughters—to get an education and have a better life than he did. Growing up, Flora became more aware of everyday gender inequities affecting indigenous communities, like the fact that women were not allowed at her community’s basketball court. By secondary school, she knew she wanted to study law “I realized since then that some things were not OK,” Flora recalled “But I did not know how to respond to such situations I was young.”
Following her IFP fellowship, Flora returned to Oaxaca and helped establish and lead several indigenous lawyers’ networks, from the localized Zapotecas and Chatinas Women Alliance of the South Mountains, to the nationally-oriented Indigenous Female Lawyers Network with members in other Mexican states Flora offers workshops that teach indigenous women about their electoral and human rights and provides legal consulting, combining gender and indigenous perspectives. Flora’s fellowship reinforced her commitment to indigenous women’s rights and prepared her to discuss broader human rights and social justice issues“ Without the scholarship, it would have been harder for her to organize us” said a colleague from Women Weaving Realities, another network that Flora helped establish, which serves as a bridge between the people and the government “I see her more secured, empowered, and more convincing with certain things.” Empowered by the scholarship, Flora has in turn enabled others with a can-do attitude “She helps a lot,” said a woman who has benefited from Flora’s activism “She is always willing to help, she always said, let’s do this.”