Land rights are everyone's struggle

CPT works alongside rural communities, such as these families occupying disused land near João Pessoa, Brazil [Marcella Haddad]

CAFOD partner the Landless Rural Workers' Movement works with small-scale Brazilian farmers to guarantee access to land, provide legal assistance and support agricultural training

The Landless Rural Workers' Movement (Movimento Sem Terra - MST) started in 1984 as part of the pastoral work of the Catholic Church in Brazil through the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT).

It started in the South and spread throughout the country. It is a grassroots organisation, which helps people living below the poverty line to claim their rights to land.

CAFOD supports the work of the MST – helping the landless poor; providing training so they know their rights and their duties as citizens; and working with people who have hit rock bottom to restore their self-esteem.

The MST works alongside other popular movements involved with land issues such as the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), National Confederation of Agricultural Workers (CONTAG), National Housing Movement (Movimento Nacional pela Moradia), Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI)) and many Rural Workers' Trades Unions and Rural Women's Organisations (MMTR).

It has built links with national governmental and non-governmental organisations: Ministries of Health, Agriculture, Labour, Environment, Justice, Culture; Unesco, Unicef, over 50 universities and the private sector. The MST also takes part in various international networks.

In Brazil, land that is not in use can be settled by anyone who wants to work it. Twenty families had been living for four years in a temporary settlement on a former sugar-cane plantation in north-east Brazil.

The previous owner was willing to allow the families to settle there until a nearby road development increased the land's value. But he then started to harass the settlers and arranged for the police to evict them.

When the police arrived, CPT’s lawyers successfully argued that the families had nowhere else to go. Now, as part of land reform measures, the government has been asked to buy the land and legalise the families’ ownership.

The MST's continuing campaign is entitled "Agrarian Reform - Everyone's Struggle".

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