August 2000

Footage from a meeting with a group of women in a large room in Pico de Oro, Chiapas, led by Martha Figueroa, a lawyer from a Women's Rights group, Grupo de Mujeres de San Cristobal. Before the meeting starts, the camera pans around the room, focusing on a Comision de Derechos Humanos poster, a newspaper article about a Caesarian birth performed with a knife, and on Figueroa preparing. Figueroa then stands and speaks on issues including women's rights, gender inequality, domestic abuse, alcoholism, and education. After some time, someone behind the camera begins translating her presentation into English. There is a CU of a pile of papers that reads "Encuentro reclamo de las mujeres ante la violencia, la impunidad y la guerra en Chiapas'" and to a letter addressed to all the women of Chiapas, inviting them to participate. Footage cuts to various incidental b-roll shots, including shots of Monica Angeles, Margaret Crehan, and Figueroa touring Mayan ruins and bathing in a waterfall. Cut to interior of a wooden house with Figueroa speaking to a man with his daughter. A baby cries in a hammock. Outside the house, a ELS as the man's wife, Sara Santiz Gomez, approaches carrying wood. There are then shots inside the house with the entire family. The interview with Sara Santiz Gomez begins outside the house. She speaks in Tzeltal, which is translated into Spanish by her husband, off-screen. She talks about how, in August 1999, she went to a state-fun hospital to give birth to her child. The doctor performed a Caesarean operation under the pretext that it was medically necessary. Later, when she went to another hospital run by the nuns for severe health problems, she discovered she had been sterilized by the doctor at the state-run hospital.