In February 2023, ABColombia, alongside its Colombian partner NGOs, hosted a conference in Bogotá entitled “Violence Against Women, Girls and LGBTQI+ Community: Its Causes and Consequences”. Women’s and LGBTQI+ organisations and grassroots women leaders from diverse communities across Colombia discussed the lived experiences of women and girls; their successes and difficulties in influencing decision makers; their challenges in resisting armed actors, especially in relation to the recruitment of children; and how they are attempting to bring about structural change in discriminatory, racist attitudes and violence against women, girls and the LGBTQI+ community. The report looks at how women in their diversity develop strategies for resistance, projects for transformative change, peacebuilding and creating access to justice for women and the LGBTQI+ community. The final section of the report looks at the Colombian government’s policies and the international community’s response to these issues.

Today, ABColombia is happy to launch the subsequent report on violence against women, girls and LGBTQI+ persons in Colombia. The launch comes at a key moment as we commemorate the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and Girls, and kickstart the 16 Days of Activism for this critical global issue.

In Colombia, decades of conflict have deepened the sexual and gender-based violence that women, girls and the LGBTQI+ community experience. This is a violence that is driven by patriarchal attitudes and intersects with colonial attitudes, structural racism, inequality and classism. As a result, this violence disproportionately impacts Afro-Colombian and Indigenous women and girls.

Peace negotiations, like the historic Peace Accord between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP in 2016, have attempted to bring an end to decades of violence and recognise inequality and exclusion. Despite this, repeating patterns of violence that have been seen in conflict are now being embedded in the domestic sphere and in the everyday lives of Indigenous women.

Sexual and gender-based violence continues to be used against those women who speak out in defence of their rights in an effort to punish, silence and limit their political power. Between 2022 and March 2024, 42 women human rights defenders (WHRDs) were killed in Colombia. The loss of a WHRD sends a frightening message that hinders the emergence of new women leaders. The extreme cruelty seen in the killings of WHRDs – because they are women – is mirrored in attacks and killings against members of the LGBTQI+ community, where particularly cruel violence is used against them to gain the approval of civil society.

ABColombia welcomes you to join us for the launch of this report on Tuesday 26 November 2024 in the IPU Room in the Houses of Parliament. More information and tickets available here: bit.ly/IndigenousVAWGEvent.