Otilia Lux de Cotí: activist for the human rights of women and indigenous peoples in Guatemala.

Otilia Lux de Cotí is an indigenous leader born in Santa Cruz del Quiché, Guatemala. She has a degree in Business Administration. Her partner's name is Jaime Cotí, and is the mother of two daughters and a son; all three are professionals. She is the grandmother of three children. 

She started working as a teacher, which became her first contact with the reality of poverty in her country. This motivated her to work double shifts to teach adult literacy. She then became involved and organized with the women of her community, committing herself to the search for justice and equal opportunities for all people. 

On the other hand, she was seeing first-hand the situation of the women: "the most elemental, (...) in the market selling what they produced on their land and seeing them "bargaining," offering them close to nothing, that hurt me a lot," Otilia shares. The injustice she observed in these situations made her get in touch with other women and men of her time; they began to organize themselves, addressing not only the economic problem but also the cultural and educational issues. 

"I saw many injustices in my community. Those injustices moved my conscience and led me to work for human rights." 

Otilia Lux de Cotí was an excellent student. She belonged to the honor roll for three years in her primary and secondary academic training. However, in this context, it was her first encounter with racism and machismo. 

She and her classmate, the only two women in the class, were looked down upon by their peers. 

"I learned to deal with it from my mother. Many times I had to defend myself, and the insults stopped." Otilia refers to her mother and grandmother as fighters because, thanks to the strength and education they imparted upon her, she had the tools to confront expressions of hatred, racism, and machismo. 

Otilia is grateful to her family for her education. "Bearing the Guatemalan flag was a source of pride; it was like wearing my suit," she says. 

Now, Otilia recognizes that it was some of her teachers who did not abandon her, and she values them especially as her allies because she had strong women by her side who accompanied and supported her. 

As an elementary school teacher, she realized that education is an invaluable tool. She worked double shifts, and it was then that she began to teach people in her community to read and write. Then, she wanted to organize herself in two areas to which she belonged: working with women and indigenous people. In honor of her "allied" women teachers, she used her leadership skills to motivate the girls to continue their education. 

During the armed conflict, she organized a women's group called "Mujeres por el Desarrollo" (Women for Development), which sought to make adult women in the community literate. Also, in the 1980s, she was in the National Women's Coordinating Committee, where her idea of organizing women in the political sphere was born, seeking training on issues of state organization through a political and government school. 

This is how she began a strong articulation with other women such as Rigoberta Menchú, Rosalina Tuyuc, Julia Zum, and women from Quiché. Together with nine other women, they created the Political Association of Mayan Women Moloj in 1997, with Otilia's intention of creating an eminently political organization. 

"We want women to have the tools to reach decision-making spaces with the perspective of Mayan women and indigenous peoples," says Otilia. 

She now works as a women's advisor, promoting women's leadership and power through diploma courses because she is convinced that women can transform the world. 

The leader emphasizes that "the women's perspective must be horizontal, without losing sight of our ancestors, because it is those women for whom we are here today. She adds, "one of the nawales Tziquin, the eagle, reminds us that we must have a double look, this means that we must have a glance backward, in retrospective. There are women who have made history, and that has cost them their lives. This effort helps us to continue searching for equality and freedom for all women. 

In Guatemala, Otilia continued to advocate with the Indigenous Women's Platform. 

"We don't let go of our bases; we women are the plains of many stories." She comments that when the Peace Accords were signed in Guatemala, twenty indigenous women were protagonists in the process; they participated in the construction of the Agreement on Identity and Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 

Their previous organization allowed them to come up with solid proposals. Otilia thinks women must occupy spaces where they are currently absent globally. 

Later, she became a deputy in the Congress of the Republic on behalf of the Winaq party and participated in Women, Extraordinary for Transparency and Indigenous Peoples commissions. Also, from 2000 to 2004, she was Minister of Culture and Sports in Guatemala. 

Around the 1990s, Otilia came in contact with the feminist movement. This knowledge helped her to promote laws in favor of women and to ensure that her work was always imbued with a gender focus. In 2006 she received the Bartolomé de las Casas award for her outstanding career in the educational and cultural field in Guatemala, highlighting her work as a member of the Commission for the Historical Clarification of the Internal Armed Conflict in Guatemala. 

At the same time, she worked on the " Girls' Education" initiative. 

Based on her experience, she promoted education for girls: "because we are educating women and thus educating families and communities and their schools." They incorporated materials with a gender focus, eliminated stereotypes, which meant a great effort, and managed to obtain 60,000 scholarships for indigenous girls, involving the Ministry of Education, the private sector, and some civil society organizations. 

Lux de Cotí mentions that President Ramiro De León Carpio included her in the delegation that would go to Beijing, so she considers herself lucky. Guatemala advocated for the Education sphere to appear. "I was appointed as the official delegate, and I delivered the government report that incorporated the voice of women from civil society." 

Referring to the challenges she still identifies, the leader mentions: "We always face enormous challenges; one is to find a way to achieve parity. We are proposing reforming the Electoral and Political Parties Law -LEPP- in its articles 212 and 212 bis. We want to achieve transformations and changes". 

When Otilia was asked what she wants to achieve, she answered, "I hope to see a Guatemala, a Latin America, where young women continue fighting for the equality that we have not achieved (...) I would like to see, in 20 or 30 years, an indigenous youth that continues to transfer its worldview from the indigenous peoples and that reproduces several elements of their culture, that has raised its flag for equality, and a woman protagonist of her development". Another challenge for the leader is the urban-rural articulation. "It is fundamental for women to transform the world and fight for the equality we want." 

Otilia recognizes the role of UN Women in articulating advocacy spaces that allow women to be part of the construction of the egalitarian world we want and to continue promoting initiatives that put women and girls at the center of the agenda. 

"The collective or social commitment of women leaders constantly moves us towards the goal of gender equality. We must listen to women. Our experiences give us a clear vision of the agenda and the need for development," says Lux de Cotí.