WOMEN, PEACE AND SECURITY:
COLOMBIA

UNIFEM WOMEN, WAR AND PEACE WEB PORTAL: COLOMBIA

"Civil society is starting to understand how it can help transform the conflict. Specifically, itís taking on the role of mediating between leading social actors like the state, the Church, and the guerrillas. Women have a particularly large role in this transformation, because they account for 90 percent of NGO leaders in the country.

Although women in Colombia historically played important roles in the community, their work for peace has been "behind-the-scenes" at the grassroots level. But because of the war, many women have become more independent and gotten more educated. When they lost their husbands and sons, women started taking on leadership roles - started running their own lives. They're now in guerrilla groups and in the army, in politics, banking, and business. They're more empowered because, as leaders, their voices are amplified. Women have a lot of strength to change things, and they're using that potential in civil society."

Martha Segura represents Colombia’s largest coalition of NGOs, a group that advocates for a peace agreement among civil society, government, and the private sector, November 2002

"it is true that in Colombia we have a problem of drug dealing and planting, but that is not the only problem we have, and the rest of the situation cannot be overshadowed by these two problematics. We have structural problems: poverty and the lack of exercise of political, social, cultural and economic rights rights. The drug problem is one we inherited our of the endemic 50 year old conflict. It is used to justify the support for more war. The Plan Colombia and the support of the USA has meant more war and the ones who is paying the price is civil society. Women in particular are very much affected by it in every aspect of our lives. We need to build a strong civil movement today in order to counteract the deepening of the war and the conflict. This piece of the planet is in agony because of the bullets.‹ We need civil representation at the negotiation table and women have to be a part of that representation. The militaristic model of negotiation was born to fail: no civil actors, no dÈtente and no basic agreement to the respect of human rights and humanitarian law. How could that have lead to peace? Impossible. We have to demand a change of the nature of the peace talks."

Gloria Tobón, March 8, 2002

"I was an organizer and educator of peasant groups in Magdalena Medio, in the heart of the oildfields in northern Colombia. I was in the office when a videotape was delivered to me. I saw on the tape a colleague of mine being tortured and killed. The message was clear: If I continued with my activities I'd be next. I ran to the police and asked for their protection but they told me there was nothing they could do. I was afraid for my own life, and for my co-workers. I fled to Bogota."

Maria, a community organizer
(Progress of the World's Women 2002, volume 1. The Independent Experts' Assessment. Women, War, Peace)