The group of activists searching for women ‘disappeared’ in Colombia
‘Buscarlas Hasta Encontrarlas’ is a collective of feminist women who for the past two years have been doing what state authorities do not: search for missing women.
Greetings esteemed fellow piratas!
We’re currently preparing for a trip with Medicos Sin Fronteras to stateless areas in the Chocó department of Colombia. The region has long been a focal point for conflict between armed groups the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the Self-Defense Gaitanista Forces of Colombia (AGC).
We will be looking into what humanitarian organizations do in the region, as well as investigating displacements due to conflict, which are on the rise. For this trip we will be headed via River, south from the capital Quibdio with the humanitarian mission.
This also means we are buying boots, jungle gear and lots of mosquito repellant.
We are quite excited and will of course be posting stories here about the results of our investigations.
But this week, Daniela takes a look at activists in Colombia who are pushing back against a trend of femicides, and finding answers for the families of the victims.
Read on for details!
The group of activists searching for women ‘disappeared’ in Colombia
‘Buscarlas Hasta Encontrarlas’ is a collective of feminist women who for the past two years have been doing what state authorities do not: search for missing women.
In Colombia, according to Medicina Legal, 2467 women disappeared in 2022 alone. And according to the Single Registry of Victims (RUV) in the last 36 years in the country have been recorded more than 5,000 women direct victims of “forced disappearance”, a classification that means they were likely kidnapped or murdered. Many of the cases involve human trafficking and sexual exploitation of women, children and adolescents.
A self-organized group of activists, numbering roughly 30, are determined to find answers for these “disappeared”.
It all started in 2020 when Valentina Naranjo, a feminist activist, was impacted by the case of Lynda Michelle Amaya, a teenager who disappeared and was later murdered in downtown Bogota. Day by day, the numbers of missing women in the city continued to grow. Worried about this growing trend, Valentina decided to start an Instagram page that draws attention to the cases of women who disappeared, never to return home.
Over time, other activists began to join her initiative as well, which came to be known as “Buscarlas Hasta Encontrarlas” (“search for them until they are found” in Spanish). They printed and distributed posters that included specific information about the missing women: their names, photos, distinguishing characteristics, age, date and place of last sighting, and contact numbers.
In the process, they realized that raising awareness and asking the public for information wasn’t achieving they answers they sought, so they began conducting their own full-scale investigations into the cases, and turned to more direct measures to bring attention to their cause— such as daily sit-ins in front of the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare together with the family of a 2-year-old girl who disappeared in a river in Bogota.
And government entities themselves have been responsible for giving false information to the families of victims trying to alert authorities, explained Gabriela Romero, volunteer activist of the collective.
"We have fought against the negligence of the authorities, in many cases the families come to tell us that the police have falsely told them they need to wait 72 hours to file a missing person report,” she told Pirate Wire Services. “We have learned through our experience the proper channels of action and what their rights are."
Since Buscarlas Hasta Encontrarlas was founded, the organization has investigated more than 200 cases in Colombia. The organization provides legal, emotional and psychological support to the families of victims. They are currently working on 37 unresolved cases.
"We have had cases of disappearance that end in femicides. In these cases we make mourning posters and in Bogota we have been able to establish action plans for the victim families and accompany them through the legal process involved," says Romero.
Disappearance beyond the armed conflict
The phenomenon of forced disappearance is not new in Colombia. It has usually been linked to the armed conflict that has plagued the country for more than half a century, but it also has a very strong urban and gender-based violence component.
In the large cities of the country the phenomenon of the disappearance of women has been strongly linked to large networks of trafficking and sexual exploitation as well as drug trafficking networks. Many families are re-victimized, suffering intimidation or even violence for speaking out, explained Romero.
Faced with what they describe as “structural violence against women”, and citing inaction by security forces, Buscarlas Hasta Encontrarlas and many other women’s organizations in the country have demanded that the government declare gender-based violence a national emergency. More than 500 of the 1500 women killed in 2022 were murdered in cases in which their gender was suspected as the primary motive, a crime which is legally designated as a femicide.
In the first two months of 2023, Colombia has experienced 25 more such femicides.
"It is imperative that the District and National Government declare a National Alert for Gender Violence due to the number of cases of femicides,” said Romero. “We call on the authorities to end this negligence by taking measures that could save lives”.
Thanks to the efforts of Buscarlas Hasta Encontrarlas, hundreds of families have found answers for the fates of missing loved ones and felt less alone in a country where justice for women has been denied. They have sorority in a group of activists who do what the government does not, explained Romero.
"Our goal is to reach more families. We want to become a foundation and those who want to can support us because we are self-financed”, she said. “We do everything out of love and to achieve a real change in society".
THE BIG HEADLINES IN LATAM
In Chile, Congress passed a resolution to begin a new Constitutional constituent process after the rejection of the last draft of the proposed Constitution in September 2022. This time around, voting will be mandatory for the first time in 11 years.
President Boric has also sent the Military to the Peruvian and Bolivian borders in an attempt to halt what critics have called a “migration crisis”. In addition to the militarization, Boric authorized the use of force against migrants who fail to comply with the instructions given to them by security forces when caught entering the country through unauthorized paths.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro and his Salvadoran counterpart Nayib Bukele threw down some serious twitter beef over the Colombian president's statements on Buekele’s inauguration of his “Terrorism Confinement Center”, the largest prison in the Americas.
Petro called the prison a 'concentration camp' and pointed out that in his administration in Bogota he had also managed to reduce homicides by building Universities and not detention centers. This did not sit very well with the Salvadoran head of state, who responded: "More than 100 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, now we are in single digits". Buekele’s policies have been strongly criticized by human rights and civil rights organizations, as Joshua explained in detail for this week's Ship’s Log.
A new UN report on Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega this week stated that Nicaragua’s president, his wife and top members of the government committed human rights abuses — including torture and murder — so serious they amounted to crimes against humanity, a United Nations investigative team concluded
The team went so far as to compare Ortega’s track record on human rights to the Nazis, saying the current government’s tactics to hold power beginning in 2018 were like those used by the German government as seen during the Nuremberg trials.
Spanish Word of the Week
Paila! This Colombian slang term can be used when everything goes wrong. When your plans fall apart or when there is absolutely nothing you can do to make things better, feel free to shout, Paila!
¿Podemos ir al rio si nos movieron el vuelo? Paila. No podemos. — Can we still go to the river if we change the dates of our flight? Paila. No we can’t.
Thinking about this more, we don’t believe there is a direct translation into English for this word. Paila!!!
If you have a suggestion though please drop it in the comments.
Hasta pronto, Piratas!