USIP's Virginia M. Bouvier reflects on her 2011 visit to Colombia's City of Women, a settlement for people displaced by violence.

As I was preparing to leave for Colombia, a headline caught my eye - “Keila Esther Berrío Almanza, member of the League of Displaced Women in the municipality of Turbaco, Bolívar, assassinated.”  There were few details about the killing. It did highlight that Keila had lived in the City of Women. 

Just a week before reading of the assassination I had made plans with Patricia Guerrero, the dynamic lawyer who founded the League of Displaced Women, to visit the City of Women, outside the port city of Cartagena.  

After Patricia greeted me, she asked a revealing question.  “I am so sorry, Ginny,” she said.  “Do you mind terribly if we are accompanied by body guards?”  

In Colombia’s rural areas and cities alike, armed accompaniment is not as rare as one might think.  Women and human rights defenders are increasingly targeted by Colombia’s armed actors as they assert their rights and seek restitution of the lands from which they have been forcibly displaced in Colombia’s long-standing internal armed conflict.  In the City of Women, recent death threats and violence have been primarily attributed to the Black Eagles (Aguilas Negras) and the Revolutionary Anti-Communist Army known as ERPAC.  

Two private security guards, courtesy of Colombia’s Ministry of Interior and Justice, sat in the front seats of the large white SUV that transported us to the City of Women in Turbaco, about a half-hour’s drive southwest of Cartagena.  A bullet-proof vest lay on the back seat.  “Is this yours?” I asked.  Patricia nodded.  “Shouldn’t you be wearing it?” Patricia gestured toward the guards in front and responded, “I put on mine when I see them putting on theirs.”  

As we drove, Patricia talked about the work of the League of Displaced Women, which she founded in 1999.  With a small grant from the U.S. Congress in 2006 and the help of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, the League had bought a piece of land where they could resettle a small group of displaced women and their families.  

“We were literally able to move mountains,” Patricia told me.  She described how 100 women and their families leveled the terrain and were trained to craft bricks of sand and cement.  One brick at a time, they transformed the hilly landscape into a small urban center of 100 homes, complete with roads, trees, flowers, and gardens.  Today, the City of Women provides refuge to some 500 people displaced by violence.

The SUV skidded through the muddy roads to the entrance of the City of Women.  The first stop was the home of Everledis Almanza Charry, a founding member of the League, and the mother of 31-year old Keila.   

As friends, relatives, and neighbors mingled with chickens in Everledis’s sparsely furnished home, the women brainstormed about legal remedies and judicial options given the failure of the protective orders and a government-issued cell phone to keep Keila safe.  The League members lamented the continued indifference of the State and noted that in the week since Keila’s death, not a single social worker or other State authority had been by to investigate.  

“Women are more unprotected than ever,” Patricia told me.  “We are living in a state of words.  It looks like a lot is being done, but it’s all a strategy of simulation.”  

Sadly, Keila’s was not the first death in the community.  Domestic violence is frequent in the community, and spousal violence has occasionally led to the death of one or both spouses. 

"Displacement creates situations of desperation where everyone suffers, and violence against women is exacerbated because the men have no future," Patricia told me.   

The League has spent years building the capacity of displaced women to document, accompany, and prosecute cases of forced displacement and violence.  It has been a difficult process.  As one woman noted, “Justice is costly, and international justice is even more so.”  When national remedies were not forthcoming, the League filed lawsuits with the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights.  Some 144 cases (15 of them for sexual violence) are currently pending at the Commission.  So far, the Commission has issued protective orders in 2009, 2010 and 2011 for the League and all of its members as well as for 16 members of the youth section of the League. In an important step forward last May, the Commission sent a special rapporteur for women’s rights to Turbaco.  The rapporteur found that the State had failed in its obligation to protect the women.  

The women mix their laments of loss and displacement with tales of triumph and hope.  “It is painful to remember what we have lived through, but every blow makes us stronger,” one of the women told me.  

They have they built a neighborhood and a thriving community.  The women took on town hall to secure electricity and potable water for the residents of the City of Women.  Their homes have doubled or tripled in value since they were built, and have sparked a development boom in the surrounding area, which now has housing for more than 3,000 people.  They established a credit fund for educational needs and for micro-enterprises, and have increased their food security by planting corn and beans.  They constructed an aqueduct, a childcare center, and a work cooperative that includes a brick factory and a community restaurant.  

The League’s efforts to end impunity have been tenacious.  Their actions have altered public policy by codifying and confirming state responsibility for displaced populations.  Although implementation of state protections has proven elusive, the League continues to be both midwife and mason for change on Colombia’s north Atlantic coast.  The work is meticulous and back-breaking, but with persistence and support, justice will prevail.

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