The illegal runways exposing the Kakataibo people to drug violence in Peru

The audience erupts into cheers and applause. The emcee has just announced the four finalists of the “Miss Juan Chávez Muquinuy” beauty pageant, who take the stage for their final walk down the runway. The competitors are all schoolgirls between 13 and 15 years old, parading in tops, shorts and platform heels. It’s 8 p.m., and although there’s no electricity in the village, the ceremony venue is lit using solar panels, and music booms through two huge speakers. “Until three years ago, the winner was decided by the number of raffle tickets sold by each salon. Now we celebrate properly,” the mother of one of the contestants says. Nearly the whole village is gathered to witness the coronation of a new queen in an Indigenous community of the Kakataibo ethnic group, located in the province of Padre Abad, in the jungle of Peru’s Ucayali region. The Kakataibo are a warrior people who have historically lived between the regions of Loreto, Ucayali and Huánuco, in a vast territory split in two by the Federico Basadre Highway. In the northern area they live with the Indigenous Shipibo-Conibo people, in the towns of Nuevo Edén, La Cumbre, Muruinia, Santa Rosita de Apua, Santa Rosa, Yamino and Mariscal Cáceres. In the south, they reside in the Native communities of Santa Martha, Puerto Nuevo, Sinchi Roca I, Sinchi Roca II, Unipacuyacu and Puerto Azul. These groups have a key cultural role, as they form a security cord around the Kakataibo North and South Indigenous Reserve,…This article was originally published on Mongabay