The Women Who Named Their Home a Sacrifice Zone

The bay of Quintero and Puchuncaví is the oldest of Chile's five so-called sacrifice zones: from the 1960s a copper smelter, thermoelectric plants, refineries and chemical terminals were concentrated on a coastline where people already lived. Mass intoxication episodes have sent hundreds of schoolchildren to hospital, and studies have tracked arsenic and heavy metals in residents for decades. Mujeres de Zonas de Sacrificio en Resistencia formed in 2014 as a deliberately women-only space, on the reasoning that it was mothers who noticed the pattern of illness first and who carried the care work when children fell sick. They have documented episodes, litigated, and taken the case abroad — presenting to 140 UN missions in Geneva and asking for observers during Chile's Universal Periodic Review. In June 2022 the government announced the closure of Codelco's Ventanas smelter, the plant at the centre of their campaign.