2 As the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination would say, there are some forms of racial discrimination that have a unique and specific impact on ethnic minority women. This is why governments must take into account, in social policies and programs planned and implemented, the disadvantageous situation of women who are victims of multiple discrimination. The process must include well-documented reports on concrete measures taken to implement both national and international mechanisms that seek to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women of African ancestry. Before proposing feasible solutions and mentioning practices that help overcome the complex situation of Afro-Latino women, I want to briefly explain critical aspects of their history as well as cultural, political and socio-economic factors affecting them. In the course of my research as an academic, activist and ethnic rights advisor for the Afro-Latinos Project, which I strongly encourage you to explore, www.afrolatinos.tv, I have turned to materials from historical archives and documents to explain the causes and characteristics of racism, gender discrimination and exclusion in Latin America, and why such problems have not been eradicated. Based on these materials, one can conclude that once slavery was abolished, the majority of Afro-Latino women found themselves in the same multiple-discrimination environment they faced as slaves, suffering the negative consequences of denigrating discourses and extremely-offensive actions that were spread through the education system and beyond. Our audiovisual materials have also documented the reproduction of the so-called socio-racial structure that comes from colonial times and institutionalized abuses against Afro-Latinas, despite Constitutions and laws promoting the existence of a society formed by free men and women living under the same judicial and human rights conditions.

Select target paragraph3