Carmen Sánchez de Bustamante Calvo was a Bolivian woman's rights advocate and the first Bolivian woman to serve on the OAS's

Inter-American Commission of Women The Inter-American Commission of Women (, , ), abbreviated CIM, is an organization that falls within the Organization of American States. It was established in 1928 by the Sixth Pan-American Conference and is composed of one female representative ...

. She also served on the organizing committee from the

Women's International League for Peace and Freedom The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) is a non-profit non-governmental organization working "to bring together women of different political views and philosophical and religious backgrounds determined to study and make kno ...

for the

Primer Congreso Interamericano de Mujeres The Primer Congreso Interamericano de Mujeres (First Inter-American Congress of Women) was a feminist meeting held from 21 to 27 August 1947 in Guatemala City, Guatemala. It was called together by the Women's International League for Peace and Freed ...

. A Bolivian women's rights organization, the Carmen Sánchez Bustamante Foundation was named in recognition of her work to promote women's rights.

Biography

Carmen Sánchez Bustamante Calvo was born in 1891 in

La Paz La Paz, officially Nuestra Señora de La Paz (Aymara language, Aymara: Chuqi Yapu ), is the seat of government of the Bolivia, Plurinational State of Bolivia. With 755,732 residents as of 2024, La Paz is the List of Bolivian cities by populati ...

, Bolivia to Daniel Sánchez Bustamante Vásquez-Bru and Cármen Calvo Molina. In 1929, Sánchez Bustamante married Enrique Sanchez de Lozada Irigoyen and had their first child Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada Sánchez Bustamante in Bolivia in 1930, before her husband accepted a diplomatic posting to

Washington, DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

. Arriving in 1931 to accept the post as First Secretary, and at times chargé d'affaires, the family lived in Washington until 1936. In 1937, the family relocated to Massachusetts, where Sanchez de Lozada accepted a posting as a professor of romance languages at

Williams College Williams College is a Private college, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim ...

in Williamstown until 1941. The family then moved back to Washington, where during the war, Sanchez de Lozada was an adviser to

Nelson Rockefeller Nelson Aldrich "Rocky" Rockefeller (July 8, 1908 – January 26, 1979) was the 41st vice president of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford. He was also the 49th governor of New York, serving from 1959 to 197 ...

who was Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs and in 1943 was appointed as "special confidential agent" of the

Gualberto Villarroel Gualberto Villarroel López (15 December 1908 – 21 July 1946) was a Bolivians, Bolivian military officer who served as the 39th president of Bolivia from 1943 to 1946. A reformist, sometimes compared with Argentina's Juan Perón, he is non ...

regime after his

coup d'état A coup d'état (; ; ), or simply a coup , is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent leadership. A self-coup is said to take place when a leader, having come to powe ...

. In the 1940s Sánchez de Bustamante was selected as Bolivia's first representative to the

Organization of American States The Organization of American States (OAS or OEA; ; ; ) is an international organization founded on 30 April 1948 to promote cooperation among its member states within the Americas. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, the OAS is ...

(CIM). She was still serving in that capacity in 1947 and that same year she served on the organizing committee of the

(WILPF)'s call for the

held in

Guatemala City Guatemala City (, also known colloquially by the nickname Guate), is the Capital city, national capital and largest city of the Guatemala, Republic of Guatemala. It is also the Municipalities of Guatemala, municipal capital of the Guatemala Depa ...

, Guatemala. At the close of the conference, she was acknowledged as one of the highest ranking women of the conference. After the conference, Heloise Brainerd, Sánchez de Bustamante, and

Annalee Stewart Annalee Stewart (February 17, 1900 – November 1988) was one of the first ordained female ministers of the Methodist Church (USA), U.S. Methodist Church and was the first woman to be a guest chaplain for the U.S. House of Representatives. She was ...

worked to try to organize a follow-up conference, but reported scant progress and the need to reorganize, as well as the closure of the Guatemalan sponsor of the event. She is also remembered for her return to Bolivia in 1946 where she inspired mob of feminists which contributed to the overthrow of president

. She was honored in 1988 on the 60th anniversary of the CIM for her work for women's rights throughout the Americas. The Carmen Sánchez Bustamante Foundation (also known as the Carmen Foundation) was named in her honor. The foundation's mission is to "promote equity and social inclusion" in Bolivia.

References

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sanchez de Bustamante Calvo, Carmen 1891 births Bolivian women activists Bolivian women's rights activists Bolivian feminists Year of death missing