It was published Tuesday in the Official Gazette Law 21.151 which gives legal recognition to the Chilean tribal people of African descent, the award for a process that began practically 20 years with the birth of the movement of vindication of black communities in the province of Arica.
With this milestone, law and takes effect and thus some justice is done with a community made invisible and even denied the national cultural tradition, but he had a strong presence in the north of the country during colonial times and during the nineteenth century.
From now it recognized by Chilean African descent “human group, having Chilean nationality in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic, shares the same culture, history, habit, united by awareness of identity and anthropological discourse, descendants of the trans-Atlantic African slaves brought to the current national territory between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries and self-identify as such”.
further, “knowledge, traditional knowledge, traditional medicine, Languages, rituals, symbols and clothing Chilean tribal people of African descent are and They will be assessed, respected and promoted by the State, recognizing them as intangible cultural heritage of the country”.
In August 2009 was presented to Congress the motion of Bill legally recognizes the Chilean people of African descent. Instance from which a Technical Policy Committee to defend the initiative was created in the Human Rights Commission of the Chamber of Deputies.
In April 2016 again he enters a new motion of Law, which was subsequently approved and dispatched the 7 March 2019.
