Nora is an Indigenous leader of the Guarani Paĩ Tavyterã people of Paraguay and defender of Indigenous peoples’ rights. She promotes ancestral knowledge, the power of Indigenous women, health, food and medicinal sovereignty.
Nora is part of a historical struggle for the regularisation of the ancestral territories comprising the Tekoha Guasu Yvy Pyte. She is also actively involved in the restitution and regeneration of forests to ensure environmental justice. Her work also includes the promotion of spaces for the transmission of traditional knowledge and wisdom of Indigenous medicine to new generations.
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.
