This photo was taken in March of 2009 as the Yakye Axa and Sawhoyamaxa Indigenous communities marched to Paraguay’s Congress to deliver signatures of support from around the world. Amnesty International has worked alongside the communities for over a decade to try and restore their rights to life, to property and to judicial protection. They had been living in exile in dangerous and precarious conditions since being displaced from their ancestral territory.
On December 10 — International Human Rights Day, appropriately — after approval from Congress, the president of Paraguay issued a law to expropriate a piece of land needed to construct a road. The road will finally allow the Yakye Axa community access to their lands.
