Vercilene Dias, the 1st female quilombola master in law in Brazil

“I was born in the Kalunga Quilombo, in Goiás, which covers three municipalities. I’m from the region of vai do Moleque and I come from a family of 12 brothers, I’m the second oldest. Since I was a little girl, I remember people saying that the land was not ours, asking for documents to prove our ownership. Only memory was our only proof, that’s why I wanted to study to help everyone, not just my family.

My uncle, who studied up to the fourth grade, taught me to read and write. When I turned 11, he told my father that he had nothing more to teach me. That’s why we decided that I would go to Arraias, in Tocantins, to do the housework on a farm to continue my studies, since we didn’t have a school in the Quilombo. I remember the family picking me up on the banks of the Paranã River. I wasn’t afraid, I was very passionate, with a greater purpose.

The scare came when I arrived at the farm at night and saw everything lit up. We didn’t know what energy was in the quilombo. With a laundry bag in hand, I started a new routine. He woke up early and slept late, since he could only have dinner after the last person in the family ate. I even fell face down on my plate of food because I was so tired. I stayed there from 2001 to 2004, when I sent a letter to my father asking to come back.

I didn’t stay at home long, because I needed to continue my studies. An aunt who was also a maid, earned 90 reais a month, sheltered me in the city of Cavalcante. Afterwards, another aunt received me in Goiânia, where I was able to prepare for the entrance exam. In 2011, I entered the Federal University of Goiás in the Law course. I am the first quilombola woman to graduate from this course.

But the journey on the course had a desperate start. Everything was very new, some colleagues spent the five years of graduation without looking at my face. I remember hearing about the Constitution, but I didn’t even know what it was. At the time, I met a lady, who was a psychologist, and needed someone to help and keep her company. She calmed me down, gave me strength and a roof over my head. Different from the farm, now I was paid for my work.

For my father and the people of the quilombo, I did “advocacy”. I’m known there. After graduation, I also did a master’s degree in agrarian law. Today, I am a legal advisor at Terra de Direitos, a human rights organization and the National Coordination for the Coordination of Black Rural Quilombola Communities (CONAQ), and I am part of the Brazilian Association of Black Women Researchers (ABPN).

It is difficult to fight for the rights of quilombolas in a political scenario as aggressive as ours. Only I have heard and witnessed the same problems for 30 years: lack of quality schools, water, energy, titles to regulate the land. The process is very slow and we do not resolve even the slightest. I don’t know how to have expectations. It takes 3 to 4 hours on a macaw stick to call for help, this in 2020, during a pandemic, because we don’t have a health center in all communities. The arrival of a virus there aggravates our genocide, of which we are already victims. We filed an action for the public power to racialize data on deaths and those infected by the coronavirus to try public policies in favor of our rights.

The strength to continue the fight comes from the example of the quilombola women and the inspiration to change the path of the younger ones. I was lucky that I suffered moral abuse, but I have friends who were sexually abused in this attempt to leave the quilombo in search of study and employment. It is very complicated. Like Tereza Benguela, she saw how mothers, grandmothers and aunts, we treat each other like that even without blood ties, moved and continue to move the structure of the quilombo. The advances we made were thanks to their articulations with the entire community. My grandmother and Dona Procópia, for example, are ladies who have always worked in the community and still spread happiness, especially during harvest season celebrations, when we express our culture and rituals. Even though I don’t live in the quilombo now, these women echo inside me daily and give me the strength to continue walking towards a more dignified reality for our people”.

🇧🇷Vercilene Francisco Dias She is a lawyer and holds a master’s degree in agrarian law from the Federal University of Goiás (UFG). Born in Quilombola Kalunga, from Cavalcante (GO), she is the first female quilombola master in law in Brazil, in addition to having a degree in international study in strategic litigation in indigenous and Afro-descendant law from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP).