IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 7 ENGLISH | Page 62

2008, its constitution declared Afrodescendants as a community, that the
(2010) census estimated that they were
7.2% of a total population of about 14
million. In 2010, the Multi-National Plan
Against Racism and Discrimination goes
into effect; by 2012, the First Conference of the Afro-Ecuadorean People
took place in the city of Guayaquil. The
most important news of 2015 is from
early October. Just prior to the celebration of National Afro-Ecuadorean Day,
the country’s Congress announced that
content about Afro-descendants would
be incorporated into its research plans
starting in 2016. A month later, with
more than 150 representatives of the
movement present, the Organic Law of
the Afro-Ecuadorean People and an Observatory to measure the effectiveness of
the International Decade were created.
The first, Afro-Ecuadorean Councilwoman, Bárbara Lara, was elected, in
March. This is an essential step in a
country where seven of every ten women
of that ethnicity suffer gender violence.
Bolivia is the only regional State in
which Afro-descendants are mentioned
in a constitution. The 2012 census revealed the presence of 16,329; Afro content went into that Congress’s research
plans in April 2014. In February 2015,
the State informed that it would implement 11, regional, teaching programs,
among which one would be for the AfroBolivian population. Bolivia already
signed and endorsed the Inter-American
Conventions Against Racism and Racial
Discrimination, and Against All Forms
of Discrimination and Intolerance.

Behind Ecuador and Bolivia, Uruguay
informed that the 2012 census had revealed that 255,000 million inhabitants
of the country identified themselves as
Afro-descendants (8.1% of the population). Upon celebrating three decades
since the end of the military dictatorship,
on October 8th, the International Decade
for People of African Descent began. Its
mission is to promote the social inclusion of some 300,000 people who live in
the country today, of which 22% of them
are affected by poverty. That same
month, a bill to declare historical, cultural, and anthropological research on AfroUruguayans in the public interest was
presented and promoted. One of the
bill’s presenters, a woman, entered the
Parliament at the beginning of the year.
Situated somewhere between intermediate-level organized progress and affirmative action, Vene zuela, in 2015, took
steps to validate its historical memory.
The mortal remains of Pedro Camejo,
more commonly known as Negro Primero, a well-known independence war
hero, were transferred to the National
Pantheon, in Caracas. Similarly, another
historical anniversary was observed on
June 24th, for the Battle of Carabobo,
which brought about the country’s independence, in 1821. By October, the mortal remains of Juana Ramírez, La
Avanzadora, a heroine of the same
struggle, were transferred as well. Both
transfers were done with great ceremonial pomp.

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