Methodist leader is new Minister of Justice

LA PAZ, Bolivia, January 24, 2006

The new Justice Minister of Bolivia, Casimira Rodríguez Romero is a Methodist lay leader who Taxi Heathrow Airport received a prize from the World Methodist Council in 2003 and is secretary general of the Latin American and Caribbean Confederation of Domestic Workers (CONLACREAHO).

The 39-year-old Quechua woman who combines her social and political tasks with Anthropology Studies at the Catholic University was born in Mizque, close to the city of Cochabamba. The only daughter of a poor family she began to work as a maid when she was 13 and therefore has first hand knowledge about the abuse faced by women who are domestic workers in Latin America.

There were times when I felt insignificant, she said. When she met Christ her life began to be filled with hope and faith because she understood that the Lord is on the side of the poor and sick and rejects injustice, she said.

Casimira Rodríguez became a member of the Emmanuel Methodist Church of Cochabamba. Each Sunday, her day off, she attended Church and took sewing lessons. This group later became the Organization of Domestic Workers, with Casimira as the leader.

She has been Secretary General of the National Federation of Domestic Workers twice and has also led the Confederation of Domestic Workers of Latin America and the Caribbean with branches in 14 countries.

She is author of the legislative initiative to regulate salaried work in the home. The law has been approved by Congress but has not been fully enacted. The law is not enough, she said. Society must understand it and assimilate it as an act of justice.

Casimira Rodríguez has been the voice of Christ to help other women who suffer what she went through. "When I met the Lord, my life was filled with hope and faith because God is with the poor, he denounces injustice and cures the sick," she affirmed. Her voice, since then, has been heard in Bolivia and abroad.

In November 2003, Casimira Rodríguez received the Methodist Peace Prize in a solemn ceremony held in the Evangelical Methodist "La Reforma" Church of La Paz. The Methodist World Council, representing 39 million Methodists around the world, rewarded her for her "Courage, creativity and constancy," in the struggle for the labor and legal right of domestic workers in Bolivia.

The Methodist Peace Prize, instituted in 1970 has been granted individuals like Boris Trajkovsky, president of Macedonia, Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa, Kofi Annan, secretary general of the United Nations and organizations like the San Egidio Community that impelled peace in Mozambique and the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo of Argentina, among others.