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PROJECT:
WALKING WITH WOMEN VICTIMS OF
SOCIO-POLITICAL VIOLENCE
IN SECTOR
13, MEDELLIN, COLOMBIA
For
thus says the Lord; “When seventy years are completed for Babylon,
I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you
back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord,
plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear
you. You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart,
I
will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes
and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have
driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from
which
I sent you into exile. (Jeremiah 29: 10-14)
Background
The
mid-Western sector of the city of Medellin has been particularly hit
by socio-political
violence over the past years.
During decades, its inhabitants have been totally ignored by the State
and this has resulted in extreme poverty which impinges on the rights
of hundreds of people and their families. Only when some armed groups
belonging to the insurgent militia occupied the region, did the national
government headed by Dr. Alvaro Uribe decide to send men to impose a
military intervention in the region. In 2002, it ordered the public forces
to recover the control of the municipality through military operations
which were known as “Mariscal”, “Antorcha” and “Orion”.
However, during these operations and subsequent to them there has been
a systematic series of crimes against humanity, open violations of the
international system of human rights and international humanitarian rights,
most of which involve the Colombian armed forces and its police.
As
a direct effect of these operations, the paramilitary project was strengthened
in the region, backed by the police and the army. Either through direct
action or by omission, they allow the consolidation of a full strategy
of social, political, economic and cultural control in the various neighborhoods
through selective and generalized terror against its inhabitants, particularly
leaders and community organizations. Such practice has included the use
of young boys and girls in criminal actions, child prostitution, plus
an increase in consumption and marketing of illegal drugs. To date, this
control is still rampant and the population denounces a silent and hidden
war that has in no way brought security or peace to the neighbors.
This
situation had various consequences on a large part of the inhabitants
of the community individually, as families and on the group at large
in view of extra-judiciary murders, forced disappearances, forced displacements,
torture, arbitrary seizures and destruction of houses, among other attacks.
Yet another consequence is the rise of poverty, extreme poverty, social
and economic exclusion through loss of jobs as the victims were the bread
winners and also through the stigmatization of the inhabitants who cannot
apply for regular work. |
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The
project:
In order to address the situation we have just
described, a group of human right organizations and religious communities
belonging to the Catholic Church (Passionists among them) decided
to join forces and, in humanitarian solidarity, draw a plan to contribute
to the recovery of the social network and to offer psychological
and juridical advice to the victims. The core of the daily work gears
around the social centre of the Missionaries of Mother Laura who,
in their house located in the same sector (Belencito neighborhood)
constantly receive victims and decide on the best intervention, on
a case by case basis. There is also a direct accompaniment in the
neighborhoods to help those families who have undergone the effects
of the war.
The main
goals of the project are to offer psychological support to the victims
in order to tackle with the consequences on individuals and families;
juridical advice to guide them through denunciation and claim of their
rights to the State; help with an inventory of the damages caused to
the victims so that they can claim total reparation within the national
law and international treatises on human rights. It has likewise been
necessary to strengthen the formation of victims on human rights and
the rights of victims of socio-political violence.
The process of
integral formation expects to generate new bonds in family, productive
life and community. At the same time, it expects to work from a psycho-social
level and historical memory in order to create group spaces that favour
the reconstruction of false social roles attributed to women and the
feminine, reassess the values and dignity of women and victims, besides
helping them to become aware of their presence and role in community
organization and in the struggle for their right to truth, justice and
full reparation.
The victims:
The Group is formed by some 100 women
who have undergone serious violations of their rights. They are mothers,
wives, daughters or sisters of people who have been killed, disappeared,
tortured or imprisoned. The victims are described as belonging to or
collaborating with guerrilla groups, or they are young people who refuse
to join paramilitary groups and are attacked on that account.
These
women, most of them mothers, have faced the loss of their loved ones
but they also undergo a daily reality of aggression against other members
of their families. They are also women who run their homes, adults who
find it difficult to find work in the city. Psycho-social consequences
have also brought physical illnesses that curtail their capacity to survive
in a dignified manner.
Despite all that, this group of women has decided
to turn their pain into a pacific tool of struggle and resistance in
defence of their rights. They keep their hope, faith and the staunch
conviction that it is possible to organize them in order to fight together
for truth, justice and reparation. They understand that enacting their
rights is a step toward building a stable and long-lasting peace, where
crimes like those they have faced will never happen again.
Risks:
Comuna 13 (Sector/ Section 13) in Medellin, Colombia, still
witnesses systematic violations of human rights on the part of paramilitary
groups than hold control and commit illegal actions in the region. This
fact impinges on the elaboration of bereavement for the victims while
it also increases the risks run by women in the group who fight for their
rights, since it holds an ongoing menace on the community to keep it
from denouncing and informing on crimes.
During 2006 and the first
months of 2007 there have been violent deeds that have touched directly
on people and families belonging to the group: menaces, forced displacements,
hitting young children, which has added to the fear and general consequences
undergone by the victims.
This forces us to apply a security strategy
of care, denunciation, and accompaniment by the international community.
There is also a constant demand to State institutions, in particular
control bodies, to provide the necessary guarantee and protection of
life and the personal integrity of individuals and families who fight
for their rights.
Accompanying team of Comuna 13
Medellin, Antioquia,
Colombia
25 June, 2007.
Padre Tarcisio Gaitán C.P., a member
of the Accompanying Team, made this report.
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