The Global Women’s Institute (GWI) and the WEAVE Collective are very proud to present our newest publication documenting the work of women human rights defenders around the world. The book is Like the Cicadas, Nicaraguan Women Keep Singing to the Sun (Como las Cigarras las Nicaragüenses Siguen Cantando al Sol), by Tamara Dávila, the celebrated Nicaraguan feminist and political activist. Like the Cicadas tells the stories of 13 Nicaraguan women political activists who were imprisoned by the Ortega-Murillo regime in Nicaragua between 2021 and 2023, when they were released through an agreement with the U.S. Government and sent to Washington, D.C., after having been stripped of their citizenship and property.
I had the honor of presenting the book last month in Madrid and Granada, Spain, together with Tamara Dávila and Dora Maria Tellez, an iconic figure from the days of the Sandinistas and one of the women whose story was included in the book. We decided to hold the event in Spain because the country has accepted tens of thousands of Nicaraguans who were forced to flee as a result of a wave of brutal repression that began in 2018 and continues to this day. Last week, the dictator Daniel Ortega announced that he was abolishing presidential elections, giving up even the pretense of democracy. The regime had already dismantled all of its earlier programs to address violence against women that the women’s movement had won through decades of effort and advocacy. Today, virtually nothing remains of the programs that led to a 70% reduction in intimate partner violence that was documented by GWI, together with Nicaraguan women’s groups in 2016.
Included among the 222 ex-prisoners released in 2023 were Tamara, Dora Maria and her partner, Ana Margarita Vigil and thirty other women political activists. Six of the women opposition leaders received the most brutal treatment of any of the prisoners. They were kept in solitary confinement, in the dark, with no sunlight or exercise, no paper or pencils, no books. They did not receive enough food —“You could count the beans and grains of rice on the plate,” Tamara has told me — and it was often spoiled. The water was contaminated, so they were constantly sick. They were not allowed to talk to others in the cells in front of or beside them. Cameras were installed in every cell, recording the prisoners’ every move, and guards stood watch in front of each one to ensure no one spoke.
The only time they ever left their cells was for interrogation sessions, which occurred at least once a day. Tamara said,
They found special ways to torture us women: I was not allowed to see my daughter during the 606 days that I was held prisoner. She drew pictures on my sister’s arm for me to see during family visits. The interrogators would constantly tell me what a bad mother I was. Why was I out in the streets when I should be home taking care of my daughter? They insisted that this was all my own fault.
Tamara had decided to name her book after the song Like the Cicadas, by the Argentinian protest singer, Mercedes Sosa.
So many times they killed me
So many times I died
Yet here I am
Resurrecting
I give thanks to misfortune and the hand with a knife
Because it killed me so badly
And I kept singing
Singing to the sun like the cicada
After a year underground.
Tamara told us,
I sang this song every morning, to remind myself that I was still alive. We were not allowed to talk to any of the other prisoners in the cells across from us; we could only make hidden gestures to our comrades as we walked out on the way to interrogations. This was one act of resistance.
Dora Maria was kept in a room so dark that she often couldn’t see her hands. She spoke quietly, her deep voice slightly hoarse:
Tamara’s song was sometimes the only human sound we heard all day. When she started singing, we could hear her from the men’s cells where I was living. All the prisoners pressed against the bars of their cells to hear her beautiful voice. Many times, it was what got us through the day.
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In a prologue for Tamara’s book, I told the story of how the book came about. While the Nicaraguan women were imprisoned, the international women’s movement carried out a sustained, intense campaign demanding their freedom, proclaiming “They were taken alive — We want them back alive,” along with the rest of the political prisoners. The Ortega-Murillo regime, under so much pressure, decided to make a deal with the U.S. Government to hand over the prisoners, agreeing that they would be expelled from the country and that the U.S. would receive them.
When we were planning to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the institute I led at George Washington University, the Global Women’s Institute, we decided to create an award to honor the 33 Nicaraguan women political prisoners to draw more attention to their situation. We called it the “Champions for Justice” award. We had planned to present it to the family members of the women prisoners at a ceremony in March 2023. For the award, we commissioned a painting by Shirleen Campbell, an Australian Aboriginal artist and feminist activist, depicting the ancient story of female solidarity, the Seven Sisters, in the traditional dot-painting style, using the blue and white colors of the Nicaraguan flag. By coincidence, the prisoners were released just two weeks before our event and we were able to honor them in person.
Tamara Dávila accepts the Champions of Justice award from the Global Women's Institute. Source: GWI.
The Nicaraguan women who were held as political prisoners, standing behind the Nicaraguan flag after receiving their Champions of Justice Award from the Global Women's Institute. Source: GWI.
On that occasion, Tamara spoke on behalf of the other women prisoners. She described not only the impact of imprisonment on incarcerated women, who endured isolation and cruel, inhumane treatment, but also about what it meant for their families, who faced harassment and constant intimidation from the Ortega-Murillo regime, the financial and logistical costs of securing food and essential goods for their imprisoned relatives, the burden of caring for their children and so many other hardships. She also mentioned the more than 200 organizations that worked for women’s rights that were closed or confiscated, and the hundreds of feminist activists forced into exile, all in an effort to dismantle the movement and reverse the progress made for women’s rights.
Despite everything they had endured, Tamara assured the group that she and her comrades continue to resist, live, participate politically, care for themselves and others and act as agents of change wherever they are. She described this enormous individual and collective challenge as "a Cirque du Soleil-style trapeze act."
I left that event deeply moved and suggested (or, according to Tamara, “insisted”) that she document her experiences and those of the other women political prisoners. I argued that it would be an important historical contribution, not only to have records of the multiple human rights violations committed by the Ortega-Murillo regime, but also to serve as a testament of these women’s courage and resilience. In fact, this work has already provided the basis for a new category of human rights abuses, defined as “gender-based political persecution,” a crime against humanity, according to experts from the International Criminal Court.
Like the Cicadas is the latest of a series of case studies produced by a group of international activists and researchers who decided to document women’s movements around the world working to end VAWG. The group is called WEAVE (Women Engaged Against Violence Everywhere), and its members have conducted case studies in South Africa, India, Nicaragua and Australia, focusing on the most marginalized groups. These studies can be viewed on the WEAVE website.
In every country, we found that women were the backbone not only of their own struggle for rights, but also of other political movements for land, climate, democracy and human rights. For example, in Nicaragua, women were not only at the forefront of the opposition movement to the Ortega dictatorship, always at the front of the marches and on the negotiating teams with the government, but they were also doing the hidden work of keeping activists and the movement alive. The women’s movement had a broad network throughout the country that could set up safe houses for activists to hide in, first-aid stations for the wounded when it was too dangerous to go to hospitals and provided support to prisoners’ family members. They also set up ways to get people out of the country safely and coordinated with allies in other countries to receive them. Perhaps most importantly, they systematically documented the situation of every political prisoner and the various human rights abuses committed. These were key documents for the international human rights groups denouncing Nicaragua. Moreover, in stark contrast to many male-dominated political spaces, the new political spaces led by the opposition groups tolerated no sexual harassment or mistreatment of fellow activists. For example, when a prominent opposition leader was credibly accused of sexually assaulting an activist in his group, a public press conference immediately announced that he had been expelled from the movement.
In the case of Nicaragua, the question we set out to answer with our case study was how women got involved and contributed to the current political movement. The answer we received was, “We didn’t get involved; we’ve always been here.” This was true in every country we studied, where women’s rights movements are still here, resisting, singing to the sun.
