San Gregorio de Polanco is a small city, located in the north of Uruguay, in the department of Tacuarembó. Lorena has always lived there, with her sons and daughters. Three years ago she joined a group of women and she never imagined how that network would transform her life, and how she could contribute to transforming others’ lives.
This article was written by Lucía Péres, edited by Eloísa Oliva and translated into English by Christina Hamilton.
Lorena is a special education teacher’s aide, she loves the boys and girls she works with, and she has a true dedication to serve. She is 36 years old and has always lived in San Gregorio de Polanco, a small town deep in the department of Tacuarembó (Uruguay), where tradition and patriarchal mandates are strongly felt.
For 20 years, Lorena suffered all kinds of violence at the hands of her ex-partner. “When I was 18, he beat me up so bad that I almost died,” Lorena recalls. “We were separated for a while, but then I got back together with him. I went back because I loved him, I don’t know… Besides, I had been taught that the right thing was to have a mother and a father, that was how you made a family, and since I didn’t have a mother or a father growing up, I wanted my children to have that. I put up with everything so they could have their mother and father,” she admits today.
As in many domestic violence situations, the aggression and threats increased in intensity and frequency. The violence was also inflicted upon their two sons who lived with them. Lorena had no friends, she was increasingly more isolated, afraid and could not find a way out of her situation.
Until one day her eldest daughter, who no longer lived with her, confronted her. “Mum, you have to leave him. He’s not going to hurt you, he’s going to kill you, he’s going to kill you and my brothers,” Lorena shares. “That’s when I said, ‘What now?’ My daughter telling me that was hard to hear, very hard,” she adds.
A few days later, something snapped within me. It was, she says, the straw that broke the camel’s back. “He would get angry and I would have to leave with the kids. One of my sons at the time was 10 years old. That night, he kicked us out and I had the key to a neighbour’s house. I left with the two boys, early in the morning (it was so cold!). And, of course, they were very scared. When they saw me shaking (because I was trying so hard not to cry, but I couldn’t control my body) one of my sons said to me: ‘Let’s go home, Mum, if Dad wants to hit you, I’ll defend you.’ That’s when I knew I couldn’t take it anymore. I said ‘okay, that’s it.’ Because it was their lives and my life.”
Lorena went to the local public service for women in situations of violence. She went there for three years, going through the hard and difficult process of leaving. During that process, she met the group called Tejedoras de Derechos (Weavers of Rights). This group emerged as an initiative from women who decided to break the pact of silence – “not seeing and not getting involved” in situations of violence experienced by girls and adolescents in their community.
When Lorena approached the group, they were organising the first march in San Gregorio de Polanco for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (November 25). During that month, every Saturday, they met to paint posters and flags. “We started getting together, and little by little more and more women joined. We put the issue on the street with our motto ‘You can’t touch the girls!’”
Lorena joined the group to transform herself and heal, and to go from being a person who experienced situations of violence to being an active promoter of women’s rights. The work of her organisation became an opportunity to meet with other women and establish shared goals to raise awareness and move towards a life free from violence.
A long healing process
In the first months of her separation, Lorena went through a deep depression. “I went down a dark hole, I was in bed for months just drinking water,” she says. It was difficult for her to connect with her situation, to face the looks, comments, judgements that, in a small town where everyone knows each other, were as inevitable as they were painful.
During that time, Tejedoras de Derechos strengthened its presence as a collective. Lorena began to participate in meetings in the town square, and then in the training opportunities provided by the organisation within the framework of Intertwined1, an initiative that Fondo de Mujeres del Sur implemented between 2021 and 2023, to strengthen organisations that work on the front line with situations of gender-based violence in places with limited support networks and with difficult access to government services. Particularly in the departments of Artigas, Cerro Largo, Rivera and Tacuarembó, in the north of Uruguay.
“We started painting posters, and then we started taking courses, training on how to deal with drugs and substance abuse, about adolescence and childhood. We also took a course on how to help women who experience violence, on Internet security, violence on social networks,” says Lorena.
Getting to know other realities and knowing that she had support was essential for Lorena. Each step meant more knowledge, one more step in her process of leaving and healing: “It gave me a lot of knowledge, and it kind of got me out of the hole, it helped me and changed my mind a bit.”
That was how Lorena, three years after her separation, found herself wanting to be part of an organisation with others who, like her, knew what it was like to experience situations of violence. But also, who knew what it meant to leave and heal. “We used to meet once a week or once a fortnight. I was always looking forward to the day of our meeting and to be able to talk there,” she adds.
Now, in addition to colleagues, Lorena also has friends: “We are always together, now luckily we are friends!”
Transformation: the word that represents her process
Lorena became an active promoter of the right to a life free from violence in San Gregorio de Polanco. Women in situations of violence, or friends and family of others who, like her, cannot find a way out, approach her. Lorena chooses the word transformation to describe how pain was channelled to become a desire to help other women.
Motivated by a colleague from the organisation, she began to provide information to other women. “She saw in me that I had that, I don’t know what to call it, gift or whatever, to talk to other women. I don’t know if it’s something that just happens to me or what, but when I see another person who is going through the same thing, even without them saying anything, I already know,” she adds.
“She made her knowledge of judicial processes, procedures, contact numbers available to the community,” adds one of the members of the organisation. “She established a relationship with the local municipality, and because of this we achieved faster responses to the requests made by Tejedoras de Derechos.”
“Lorena managed to give visibility to the violence she experienced, the relationship with the father of her children, and all the violence she went through. The fact she obtained a court ruling, that included the use of an ankle monitor in a small town in the interior of Uruguay, that is also very difficult,” she adds.
Stories like Lorena’s are proof that it is possible, even in the most hostile contexts, to get out and break the cycles of violence. In short, it is a clear example of transformation.
The stories shared show what community networks of women are capable of, what they do, what it means to have a way out of isolation and to be able to begin to think about a shared future with others.
Strengthening these strategies is the way we choose to build lives free from violence. With your donation, you can strengthen these networks so that more organisations can continue with their work. Join the campaign to strengthen the networks that keep us Together, Stronger and Alive!!
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- Intertwined is an initiative that we implemented in partnership with FLACSO and Asociación Civil El Paso, and with support from the European Union. The project sought to strengthen organisations that work on the front line with situations of gender-based violence in the departments of Artigas, Cerro Largo, Tacuarembó and Rivera in Uruguay. ↩︎