The Colombian National Human Rights Prize began eleven years ago with the purpose of elevating the work of human rights defenders within and outside of Colombia. It also serves to provide these defenders and their organizations with protection given the high rate of killings, attacks and intimidation human rights defenders face in that country. As part of the prize, the winners go on a delegation to the United States where they go to Washington, DC to meet with U.S. policymakers and New York to meet with United Nations missions and agencies.
This year’s winners are made up entirely of female defenders. In this conversation, the delegation will focusing on women, peace, security and human rights with an emphasis on its interconnectivity with land rights and the environment
Invited Participants:
Gimena Sanchez (moderator), Director for the Andes at WOLA. Sanchez belongs to the committee of judges for the prize.
Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli is the leading Colombia human rights advocate at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA). Ms. Sánchez is an expert on peace and illegal armed groups, internally displaced persons, human rights and ethnic minority rights. Her work has shed light on the situation of Colombia’s more than seven million internally displaced persons—as well as help expose the links between Colombia’s government and drug-funded paramilitaries. She is active in promoting labor rights and implementation of the U.S.-Colombia Labor Action Plan.
Angélica Romero Villalba of the Collective Association Women in Law (ASOCOLEMAD)
Villalba directs the Women, Telecommunications, and ECOSOC Agenda of ASOCOLEMAD before the United Nations. Based in the conflicted area of Magdalena in Colombia’s Caribbean region, ASOCOLEMAD focuses on making women and girls agents of change. The organization works to advance gender and social justice through feminist theory and practice. Through litigation, ASOCOLEMAD has advanced emblematic human rights cases including crimes against humanity that have impacted women and girls.
Jani Rita Silva De Rengifo of Network We are Genesis (Somos Génesis)
We are Genesis is a network composed of over 160 rural and grassroots organizational and community initiatives located in diverse parts of Colombia. Its objective is to achieve truth, justice, and guarantees of non-repetition in conflict-impacted areas of Antioquia, Cauca, Chocó, Nariño, Putumayo, and Valle del Cauca. Black, Indigenous, and peasant communities, women, youth, children and social networks make up the initiatives in this coalition. The network supports victims of the armed conflict and works to create spaces for peace and dialogue. Their strategies include Open Letters, Memory Festivals and Gatherings, and the promotion of a Global Humanitarian Agreement.
Jani Silva has dedicated her life to protecting the Amazon and the life from illegal armed groups and multinational companies. She has led reforestation programs and advocated for the implementation of the Peace Agreement signed in 2016 between the FARC-EP and the Colombian government. She has suffered death threats in retaliation for her work, but the Colombian authorities have not developed a comprehensive and efficient plan to guarantee her safety. Since January 2020, state protection has proven insufficient to prevent seven security incidents that Jani Silva has experienced. Shes suffered persecution, illegal digital surveillance by the Colombian Army, death threats, her home being shot at, and has uncovered a plan to assassinate her.
Diana María Salcedo López, Director of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom – WILPF/LIMPAL COLOMBIA.
LIMPAL is a feminist, pacifist, and anti-militarist organization that has promoted peacebuilding in Colombia for 24 years. The organization is the Colombian chapter of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) movement, which is recognized as the oldest women’s pacifist organization in the world, with 107 years of peace activism in 45 countries. LIMPAL promotes the implementation of Resolution 1325 of the United Nations Security Council and the “Woman, Peace, and Security” Agenda in Colombia. It is recognized for its focus on disarmament, reincorporation, and reconciliation from a feminist-pacifist perspective, and for strengthening organizations locally; in addition to its advocacy efforts in favor of implementing the Final Agreement to End the Conflict between the Colombian State and the former FARC guerrillas. It has provided psycho-emotional and organizational accompaniment to the initiatives of a diversity of women.
Salcedo López is an expert on women, gender and citizenship, and serves as representative before the Intersectoral Commission for Security Guarantees for Female Defenders and Leaders. She is a national representative for the Special High Instance for Gender that monitors the 2016 peace accord. As such, she advances an intersectional gender focus in public policies.