Sofía is a social researcher with postgraduate studies in gender and development cooperation and social anthropology. She coordinates Áry Ojeasojavo Tembiapokatu Ancestral Studies Group. In recent years, she has been working alongside Indigenous associations and communities of the Guarani Paĩ Tavyterã people of Amambay, Paraguay. This work has focused on strengthening the Paĩ Tavyterã’s defence of their rights and their educational and organisational processes.
She carries out awareness work within the cultural field in relation to Indigenous knowledge and arts. She accompanies Indigenous leaders in the strengthening of ceremonial spaces and in the transmission of knowledge within the communities.
She has collaborated as a specialist in gender issues with a range of international cooperation agencies in the region, including the United Nations in Paraguay.
Human rights defenders and journalists are facing significant insecurity, harassment and killings.
Land rights defenders have faced particularly violent repression. In 2012, one of the lead figures of the land rights movement, Mr Vidal Vega, former head of the Campesinos sin Tierra (Peasants without Land) and a key witness into the Curuguaty massacre, was assassinated in front of his family. According to the Paraguayan Human Rights Coordinator, between 1989 and 2013, 115 land rights defenders from campesino organisations were killed or forcefully disappeared.
