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2006

IACHR releases report on the impact of the Colombian armed conflict on women
December 5, 2006 - (Reliefweb) The actors in the Colombian armed conflict, in particular the paramilitary groups and the guerrilla, employ physical, sexual and psychological violence against women as a strategy of war. This is one of the most alarming conclusions of a report prepared by the Rapporteurship on the Rights of Women of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) that becomes public today.

Columbian Leaders Agree: Empowering Women Strengthens their democracy
November 6, 2006 – (WUNRN) While it may not rule the headlines, Colombia remains embroiled in Latin America’s longest-running internal conflict. Peace talks between Colombian President Álvaro Uribe and rebel groups seemed within reach in October but many obstacles remain.

Video of girls' abuse angers Colombians
September 1, 2006 – (AP) Police officers are being investigated for allegedly shooting a video of two girls being sexually abused by a man, evidence they intended to use against him in court but which instead sparked a public outcry after the tape was released to the media.

Church condemns abortion performed on raped girl, 11
August 31, 2006 - (The Guardian) A Vatican official has said the Catholic church will excommunicate a medical team who performed Colombia's first legal abortion on an 11-year-old girl, who was eight weeks pregnant after being raped by her stepfather.

Displaced Women Build New Lives, Brick by Brick
August 1, 2006 - (IPS) "The City of Women", in the northern Colombian municipality of Turbaco, 11 kilometres from the fortified walls of this tourist resort city, bears no resemblance to Federico Fellini's 1980 film by the same name, or to the similarly dubbed Buenos Aires neighbourhood of Puerto Madero, where almost all the streets and public spaces are named for famous women. These Colombian women, in contrast, are very real and still alive, and are making their own mark on the country.

2005

Beauty and power in Colombia
September 30, 2005 - (BBC) As part of the BBC's Who Runs Your World series, Alicia Trujillo reports on the relationship between power and beauty in Colombia, where hundreds of beauty pageants are held every year. In Colombia, being a beauty queen appears to have become a career choice. For many it leads to a lucrative job as a TV news presenter or a soap opera actress.

Challenging abortion law in Colombia: An interview with Monica Roa
July 2005 - (AWID) Monica Roa is the director of the Gender Justice Program at Women's Link Worldwide and the attorney that filed the case in Colombia.

Colombia: Mujeres Enfrentan Prisión por Abortos: Human Rights Watch Cuestiona las Leyes Restrictivas sobre el Aborto
27 de junio del 2005 - (Human Rights Watch) En Colombia, las mujeres enfrentan prisión por hasta cuatro años y medio, incluso en casos de violación o donde su vida corre peligro. En un memorando presentado frente la Corte Constitucional de Colombia, Human Rights Watch declaró que las sanciones penales por aborto de este país no están de acuerdo con las obligaciones internacionales en materia de derechos humanos, y que deberían ser declaradas inconstitucionales.

Colombia: Women Face Prison for Abortion
Human Rights Watch Joins Challenge to Restrictive Abortion Laws
June 27, 2005 - ( Human Rights Watch) In Colombia, women can be imprisoned for up to four and a half years for having abortions even in cases of rape or when their lives are at risk. In a brief to Colombia’s Constitutional Court, Human Rights Watch said the country’s penal sanctions for abortion are inconsistent with international human rights obligations and should be declared unconstitutional.

L A NUEVA LEY DE JUSTICIA Y PAZ FAVORECE A LOS VICTIMARIOS Y NO A LAS VICTIMAS
23 de junio de 2005 - (IMP) La Iniciativa de Mujeres Colombianas por la paz, IMP, manifiesta su preocupación por el contenido del proyecto de ley de Justicia y paz, teniendo en cuenta que no cumple con los estándares internacionales de derechos humanos, desconoce la situación de conflicto armado y del Derecho Internacional Humanitario, y peor aún protege y da todas las garantías a los victimarios y no a las victimas, permitiendo de pleno derecho la impunidad de los delitos.

2004

Sexual aggression as a method of war
December 16, 2004 - (LatinAmerica Press) Women combatants are even sexual victims of their own armen colleagues. Armed groups direct their violence against the civilian population, especially women.

November 25 Mobilization to Choco
November 29, 2004 – (Ruta) Within the framework of the international day of non-violence against women, 700 women of Ruta Pacifica mobilized headed towards Choco 23-26 November. They marched to the Pacific to call attention to and denounce the humanitarian crisis in Choco, as it is evidenced in the plight of the displaced women and communities confined in that department. For more information, email Ruta Pacifica.

Breaking the silence over violence against women in Colombia
November 25, 2004 – (UNHCR) On the morning of May 5, 2003, Omaira Fernández took a walk to the stream that runs near her home in the indigenous reserve of Betoyes, in the Colombian province of Arauca. She was 16 and already a widow, her husband another victim of the violence that has shattered this corner of northern Colombia . While she was washing clothes, an advancing column of uniformed men wearing armbands of one of Colombia 's illegal armed groups spotted her. Omaira was six months pregnant and the men had no difficulty in subduing her.

Brutalidad contra la mujer en Colombia
October 15, 2004 – (BBC Mundo) La mujer colombiana se ha convertido en un campo de batalla más de los actores armados, denunció esta semana Amnistía Internacional, AI. Violaciones, mutilaciones, descuartizamientos y hasta empalamientos son algunos de los métodos utilizados por los actores armados del conflicto para buscar ventajas militares.

Rape 'a weapon in Colombia war'
October 13, 2004 – (BBC) Women and girls are being increasingly caught up in Colombia 's armed conflict, as rival groups rape, mutilate and kill them, Amnesty International says.

COLOMBIA FIGHTERS ASSAULTING WOMEN
October 13, 2004 (AP) An international human rights group accused Colombian rebels, paramilitary gunmen and soldiers of sexually abusing women during the country's insurgency, and charged that the government hasn't done enough to punish the offenders. Amnesty International USA said in a report Wednesday that right-wing paramilitary groups are the main violators.

Women's Bodies Used As A Battleground
October 13, 2004 – (Amnesty) By sowing terror, exploiting and manipulating women for military gain, armed groups in Colombia have turned women’s bodies into a battleground

A NEW LIFE FOR YOLANDA
July 28, 2004 - (European Commission - Humanitarian Aid Office) Colombia has not known peace for more than half a century. Since 1985, conflicts have forced three million people (or 8% of the Colombian population) to leave their homes.

COLOMBIA LAUNCHES CAMPAIGN TO CURB TEEN PREGNANCY
April 13, 2004 – (UN Wire) The Colombian government is launching a campaign today to reduce pregnancy rates among teenage girls in the country, where in 2000 an estimated 400,000 young women between 15 and 19 years of age were pregnant or already had children.

UN FOOD AGENCY VOICES CONCERN FOR 2 MILLION COLOMBIANS DISPLACED BY CONFLICT
March 16, 2004 – (UN News) A senior official from the United Nations emergency feeding agency voiced concern today over the plight of 2 million Colombians displaced by armed conflict, 80 percent of them lacking access to food.

UNHCR CONDEMNS MURDERS OF TWO LEADERS OF DISPLACED COLOMBIANS
February 10, 2004 - (UNHCR) The UN refugee agency today condemned the murders of two members of an association of internally displaced persons (IDP) in Colombia and urged Colombian authorities to investigate the killings and prosecute those responsible.
Marta Cecilia Aguirre, a 36-year-old mother of four, and Giovanni de Jesús Montoya Molina, 45, were murdered on Sunday in front of their homes in the north-western Colombian city of Aparetado in separate attacks by unidentified armed men in civilian clothes.

2003

UNHCR CONDEMNS ATTACKS ON COLOMBIAN WOMEN
December 24, 2003 - (UNHCR) The UN refugee agency has expressed deep concern over continuing attacks against human rights groups in Colombia, including a break-in last week at the office of a women's organisation which works closely with UNHCR.

COLOMBIANS TURNING TO LINGERIE FOR CASH
December 2, 2003 – (AP) At first they grew coffee. But after prices for the crop collapsed, many of the farmers in the steamy jungles of western Colombia turned to growing coca, the raw ingredient used in cocaine.

LOVE THYSELF, USE CONDOMS TO PREVENT HIV/AIDS - CAMPAIGN
November 28, 2003 - (IPS/GIN) "Because self-love is the most important, I'm the one who carries the condom," actress Diana Angel, a favourite among young Colombian television viewers, says confidently and directly into the camera.

PEACE CARAVAN IN THE TENSE SOLITUDE OF PUTUMAYO
November 26, 2003 - (IPS/GIN) Just before dusk, a group of drivers gathers on the side of the dirt road in the remote Colombian province of Putumayo, bringing the Women's Peace Caravan, which is protesting the civil war, to a halt because one of the buses has a flat tire.

MOVEMENT OF WOMEN AGAINST WAR: “CAMPAIGN FOR DEMILITARIZATION AND THE RECOVERY OF CIVIL LIFE”
November 24, 2003 – (Press Release No. 12) Hundreds of women in Putumayo are living through the solitude and misery that has been imposed on their region, their communities and their bodies by a long process of social and economic deterioration. On 25 November, along with hundreds of other women from all over the country, they will say to Colombia and to the world no to the aerial spraying of herbicides, no to an anti-narcotic policy that discounts social reality and which, therefore, excludes policies that would lead to real development for the communities.

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN COLOMBIA A CONTINUING CONCERN
November 11, 2003 – (OMCT) The World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) expresses its concern regarding violence against women in Colombia at the 31st Session of the UN Committee against Torture.

ESTAS FUERON LOS PRINCIPALES ROCES DE MARTA LUCIA RAMIREZ COMO MINISTRA DE DEFENSA (Text in Spanish)
November 10, 2003 – (El Tiempo) The most recent took place as a result of the failure of the referendum, when the president of the Senate, Germa'n Vargas Lleras, was critical against Marta Lucia Ramires, Defence Minister. The liberal leader said that Ramirez management was negatively affected by the troubled relation with the Armed Forces.

ATTEMPTED SEXUAL ASSAULT AND PHYSCIAL ILL-TREATMENT OF MRS. YORMAN RODRÍGUEZ
October 27, 2003 – (OMCT Appeal) The International Secretariat of OMCT has been informed by Federación Nacional Sindical Unitaria FUENSAGRO-CUT, Corporación Colectivo de Abogados José Alvear Restrepo, Comité Permanente por la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos, and Comité de Solidaridad con Presos Políticos, all members of the OMCT Network, of the attempted sexual assault and physical ill-treatment of Ms Yorman Rodríguez by the Police of the Municipality of Colosó in the department of Sucre and the seizure of her husband’s – Ruddy Robles Rivero, secretary of SINDIAGRICULTORES - mobile telephone, on 23 October 2003 in Colombia…

MASSACRE OF A MOTHER AND HER SEVEN CHILDREN (Text in Spanish)
October 23, 2003 - (EL TIEMPO) After three days of search, a commission found the tortured bodies of the eight members of the family Go'mez Montero. The family had been reported missing last Monday.

"WE'RE HERE BECAUSE WE CAN HELP", COLOMBIN PEACE DELEGATION TELLS MIDWEST AUDIENCE
October 22, 2003 - (LUTHERAN WORLD RELIEF) A peace delegation is now in the Midwest from rural Colombia, South America. "We are here because we know that when the people of the U.S. hear the real story of Colombia they will educate the U.S. Congress and help the people of Colombia," Yanid Giraldo, one of three 'grassroots ambassadors' from Colombia, told audiences in Minnesota this week.

COLOMBIAN GUNMEN KILL HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST
October 17, 2003 - (Reuters) - Colombian far-right paramilitary gunmen shot and killed a human rights activist after kidnapping her from her home, in a new breach of a cease-fire declared by the militias, officials and colleagues said on Friday.

WOMENS' VOICES - URGENT ACTION: MURDER OF POPULAR WOMEN’S ORGANISATION MEMBER AND HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER IN BARRANCABERMEJA (English and Spanish)
October 16, 2003 – (ORGANIZACIÓN FEMENINA POPULAR) The Colombian NGO, the "Jose Alvear Restrepo" Lawyers Collective, denounces and repudiates the assassination of ESPERANZA AMARIS MIRANDA, human rights defender and member of the Organizacion Femenina Popular [ Popular Women’s Organisation] in Barrancabermeja, and we request that all social, trade union, women’s and human rights organisations denounce the event to the relevant authorities and hold them to their responsibility to protect the lives of civilians in Barrancabermeja and the Magdalena del Medio.

THE WHO REJECTS CRITICS OF THE VATICAN ON THE USE OF CONDOMS (Text in Spanish)
October 13, 2003 - (EL TIEMPO) "It is very dangerous to make declarations that tend to make think that the preservatives are not effective", said Fadela Chaib, spokesman for the organization. The Colombian cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, president of the Vatican Pontifical Council for the Family, stated that condoms, the main weapons for the fight against HIV/AIDS, are ineffective in the control of the virus that causes that mortal disease.

THE NEW PRESIDENT OF THE CONSITUTIONAL COURT, CLARA INES VARGAS, SAYS SHE IS NOT THERE TO BE A WOMAN (Text in Spanish)
October 6, 2003 - (EL TIEMPO) Last Tuesday Clara Ines Vargas became the first woman in Colombia to be elected President of the Constitutional Court. Sober and extremely serious, she has been described as a hard-liner.

LAS MUJERES, FIRMES CONTRA LA GUERRA (in Spanish)
August 21, 2003 - (Mujeres Hoy) Women's organizations do not stop in their persistence to defend the political negotiation as a solution to the armed conflict that persists in the country. With new strategies, 140 women's organizations celebrate the first anniversary of the march against the war that took place on July 25 2003, where more than 40.000 people attended.

ABDUCTION & TORTURE OF BLACK WOMEN ACTIIVISTS
August 8, 2003 - (Amnesty International) Amnesty International is seriously concerned for the safety of Leonora Castano, president of the Asociacion Nacional de Mujeres Campesinas, Negras e Indigenas de Colombia (ANMUCIC), National Association of Peasant, Black and Indigenous Women of Colombia, and other members of the organization. Two members of ANMUCIC were reportedly recently abducted by army-backed paramilitaries. On 21 July Nora Cecilia Velasquez, leader of ANMUCIC in Cundinamarca department, was allegedly abducted by armed-backed paramilitaries.

WOMEN AND WAR IN COLOMBIA: "NONE OF THE WOMEN MAKE THE WAR, BUT THEY ALL LIVE IT"
August 2003 - (FIRE) The war – and that’s what it is – a war—in Colombia is fueled by oil and cocaine, although the latter receives the most attention in the headlines. And as most of the world’s eyes are on Iraq and the Middle East, $700 million in US tax money as part of Plan Colombia will be paid this year to fuel another VietNam-type war in Colombia, making it the second largest recipient of foreign aid after Israel. With a total cost of over $2.5 billion since 2000 for Plan Colombia, most of the money actually goes to US arms and chemical corporations for weapons, helicopters and chemical fumigation.

CAFOD SENDS SOLIDARITY GREETING TO COLOMBIAN WOMEN ON INTERNATIONAL WOMEN DAY
July 3, 2003 - (CAFOD) To mark International Women’s Day (8 March), CAFOD has sent solidarity greetings to women in Golosinas Amazónicas cooperative who are continuing to bravely work in an area in Colombia severely affected by conflict.

2002

THE ANGUISH OF DISPLACED WOMEN
December 19, 2002 - (ICRC) Civilians are helpless victims in the territorial dispute between the parties in conflict. They have no choice but to go along with those who take control of their villages -- at the risk of being considered collaborators -- or to flee and face an uncertain future. In late November, the ICRC delivered emergency food aid and other basic necessities to 191 displaced families in themain city of San Luis and on 10 December to 35 other displaced families in Medellín, the capital of the department. Between January and September 2002, the organization had already assisted some 150,000 people who were either displaced or living in conflict zones throughout Colombia, a larger number than during the entire previous year. Displaced people often wind up settling in destitute neighbourhoods on the outskirts of cities. This is why, following the emergency phase, they must receive support from the Colombian authorities and humanitarian organizations, especially in the areas of education, housing and health care.

THREATS TO THE WOMEN'S ORGANIZATION OF THE PEOPLE IN BARRANCA
May 13, 2002 - THE ADVOCACY COLLECTIVE "Jose Alvear Restrepo" hereby calls to the attention of both the National and International Human Rights organizations and the Local, Departmental and National authorities responsible for keeping law and order in the nation that death threats are increasing against the Organizacion Femenina Popular (Women's Organization of the People).

COLOMBIAN COURT FREES WOMAN ACCUSED OF INFANTICIDE
April 24, 2002 - (WeNews) Colombia's high court frees a woman jailed for more than six years on charges she murdered her infant. Her version--that she was raped, hid the pregnancy and gave birth to a stillborn infant--was never investigated by local authorities.

COLOMBIAN REBELS MIX GENDERS, NOT OPPORTUNITIES
January 15, 2002 - (WEnews) Women rebels fighting the Colombian government live the lives of soldiers in training camps, yet have little expectation of promotion, have no control over their reproductive lives and face death if they dare to leave.

COLOMBIA'S FEMALE FIGHTING FORCE
JANUARY 4, 2002 - (BBC NEWS) Adriana is 17 years old. She joined the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), when she was 13 and killed her first man at 14. "We attacked a police station, Adriana said looking down as she recalled her first taste of combat. "I just kept firing at the police station whilst other moved in. I lost some good friends that day."

2001

COLOMBIAN WOMEN DEMAND PARTICIPATION IN THE PEACE PROCESS
December 5, 2001 - (Guayaquil, Ecuador) After seven days of deliberations in alternative peace talks on the Peace Boat, Colombian women are proposing that they become a mediating group to bring ways of resolving the agonizing peace process now taking place between the government of President Pastrana and the armed groups.

WOMEN'S RIGHTS IGNORED BY LATIN AMERICAN COURTS
December 4, 2001 - Though international treaties on women's rights are recognized in Latin America and laws are on the books, courts in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru don't always uphold them. Chile is the worst; Colombia better, a new study says.

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN PRIZE FOR THE POPULAR WOMEN'S ORGANIZATION IN COLOMBIA
October 16, 2001- The Popular Femenine Organization - OFP will receive the prize "Violence against Women - Human Rights of and for Women" of the United Nations for its job in Barranca. The prize will be offered in the city of Bonn, Germany, October 22. La Organización Femenina Popular - OFP recibirá el premio "Violencia contra Mujeres - Derechos Humanos de y para Mujeres" de las Naciones Unidas para su trabajo en Barranca. El premio será otorgado en la ciudad de Bonn, Alemania, el 22 de octubre.

DISPLACEMENTS INCREASE SEXUAL VIOLATIONS AND AGGRESSIONS TOWARD THE COLOMBIANS
September 17, 2001 - (CIMAC) The maltrato, the sexual abuse, the embarrassments not desired and the lack of attention in health, that suffer the women in Colombia, they are aggravated with the displacement, a condition that affects 2.5 million women in the country. (English & Espanol)

PARAMILITARY HARASSMENT IN COLOMBIA
May 22, 2001 - The International Secretariat of the OMCT has recently received new information on the situation of women activists in Colombia. Ms. Yolanda Becerra Vega, coordinator of the Organizacion Femenina Popular (OFP), continues to be subjected to death threats and different forms of harassment. Other women of the same organization have been threatened as well (in Spanish).

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