Open Letter from Diverse Women for Diversity to world leaders

We, the women of the world, meeting together in Dehradun, India as the ¨Diverse of Women for Diversity¨, and representing 17 nationalities and multiple cultures, welcome and support the decision of the Mexican government through the presidential decree to phase out the use of GMOs and glyphosate.

We are outraged and dismayed that the Government of the United States is trying to pressure the government of Mexico to impose GMO transgenic Corn in violation of Mexico´s sovereignty and its sovereign rights enshrined in international agreements.

We as diverse women of the world working for protection of Biodiversity and resisting the imposition of GMOs which destroy our biodiversity and our food sovereignty support the Mexican government, condemn the bullying by United States and the biotechnology industry to force GMOs on Mexico and the world violating   the Convention of Biological Diversity and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety which enshrine sovereignty and the precautionary principle. We also ask the European Commission to stand by the decisions they have made under the precautionary principle.

We call on the government to:

• Stop this strategy of pressuring the Government of Mexico to accept GMO corn. Mexico is the genetic reservoir of maize globally, which we must preserve.
• Recognize and accept the policy decisions democratically adopted by a sovereign country
• Acknowledge that the policies of Mexico are based on solid international scientific evidence demonstrating the harmful impacts of GMOs and glyphosate on human and environmental health.
• Recognize that the biodiversity of maize in Mexico is essential to food sovereignty not only in Mexico, but globally. No GMO should be introduced in a country which is a centre of diversity.

We as diverse women were born as movement in the defense of biocultural diversity and resist GMOs everywhere since GMOs, pesticides and the industrial food system are the single biggest reason for the disappearance of biodiversity. We will continue our struggle in defense of life, diversity and freedom.