Progress

From IPS

Two years ago, Eufrosina Cruz was kept from running for mayor of her home village by the "traditions and customs" of her indigenous community in southern Mexico, just because she is a woman.

But she refused to back down, and challenged the tradition – a decision that brought her death threats, but also dreams and achievements that she had never imagined.

On Tuesday, the 29-year-old Zapoteca Indian woman presented in the Mexican capital a new civil society association aimed at highlighting the deep-rooted nature of native traditions and customs in many communities, especially in the impoverished southern state of Oaxaca, where a large proportion of the population is indigenous.

"If in November 2010, women can finally vote in my village and one of them is elected mayor, I will be more than happy; it will be the best achievement of this association, through which I promise to become even more crazy, which is what people in my village say I am," Cruz said in an interview with IPS.