Radio Mundo Real

“Margarida´s courage for resisting the dictatorship for so many years turned her into a symbol of women who fight for the rights of workers”, said Miriam Nobre, leader of the World March of Women of Brazil, about Margarida Alves, a rural worker, unionist from the Brazilian north-eastern region. On August 11 and 12, over 70 thousand people took to the streets of the Brazilian capital to reclaim her name and her struggles, at the 5th March of Margaridas in Brazil.

Margarida became president of the Rural Workers Union of Alagoa Grande, in Paraiba State, in 1973, “during the hardest times of the dictatorship”, said Miriam. “She strongly defended the rights of workers (sugarcane): for access to registration, to receiving salaries in an adequate way, among other rights. With this, she faced the businesspeople of the area, until ten years later, during which she obtained many victories at judicial level for labor rights, she was murdered by a hitman”.