Colombia

This report by the feminist civil society body, Urgent Action Fund of Latin America and the Caribbean, focuses on the role of women in protecting and defending nature, and warns of increasing risks to their lives and environment. The report discusses ‘the extractive model’ and the social-environmental conflicts it creates, and also the disturbing militarization and violations of women’s rights, including those defending their environment. The report outlines proposals made by women for defence of territory, and also stresses the diversity of the approaches, organizations and activities developed by Latin American women.

Under the slogan "Now is the time: Rural and urban activists transform the lives of women", UN Women draw attention to the work of the movement of women activists in Colombia and the circumstances they have to face on a daily basis.

This article notes the disproportionate impact on women of climate change in many parts of the world and the recognition of this fact in the UN Paris Agreement, which called for empowerment of women in climate talks. It also points to the prominence of women in the struggle to limit climate change, and selects 15 women from round the world playing varied roles, including Greta Thunberg.

Historic conviction of a 23-year old young man who murdered Anyela Ramos Claros, a transgender woman. This was the first conviction among at least 35 cases in Colombia.

This is a special issue on women’s organized resistance to the extraction of natural resources that has a damaging impact on their lives and environment. Articles cover movements in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Mexico and also Ghana, focusing on the importance of water as a vital resource, and also on women’s embodied experience of suffering from water pollution and scarcity. The articles also discuss gendered critiques of extraction.

Examines women’s resistance to war in many parts of the world, including Sierra Leone, Colombia and Gujarat, India. It also covers women’s cooperation across enemy lines in the former Yugoslavia and in Israel/Palestine, and resistance in the west to imperialist war, and develops theoretical questions about gender and militarism. See also:  Cockburn, Cynthia , Women in Black: The Stony Path to “Solidarity” In Clark, People Power: Unarmed Resistance and Global Solidarity (A. 1.b. Strategic Theory, Dynamics, Methods and Movements)London, Pluto Press, 2009, pp. 156-163

This is a key book about the Colombian peace communities and the civil resistance of indigenous peoples, Afro Americans and peasants in the context of a bloody civil war. It focuses in particular on the civil resistance of the Nasa people (Paez) in the Cauca department. This is not only the strongest movement (with their Indigenous Guard able to confront guerrillas, the army and paramilitaries), but also the one which has lasted longest and influenced the others. In addition there are studies of the Asociacíon Campesina Integral del Atrato (ACIA), Asociación de Trabajadores Campesinos de Carare (ATCC), Comunidad de Paz de San José de Apartadó and the Asamblea Municipal Constituyente de Tarso.

A collection of essays by and about women COs in USA, Europe, Turkey, Israel, Eritrea, Korea, Paraguay and Colombia.

Covers women’s political rights across all major regions of the world, focusing both on women’s right to vote and women’s right to run for political office. The countries explored are Afghanistan, Armenia, Australia, Bolivia, Canada, Cameroon, Chile, China, Colombia, Cuba, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, New Zealand, Myanmar, Niger, Nigeria, Poland, Russia, Rwanda, Slovenia, Sri Lanka, Sweden, South Korea, Slovenia, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tunisia, Turkey, the United States, Uganda, Uruguay, and Zimbabwe.

This book is the outcome of long term research by the Antiracist Research and Action Network of the Americas into rising racial intolerance, but also increasing resistance by both Black and indigenous people throughout the Americas. It covers six Latin American countries - Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico - as well as the US, and discusses the backlash against earlier gains in rights within nation states. The book argues that this nation-based strategy, pursued in a neo-liberal capitalist context, was inadequate and that the focus should now be on resisting ‘racial capitalism’ which bolsters white supremacy. The rise of militant anti-racial activism in the US and around the world in 2020 makes the book especially relevant.

The authors are proponents of the theory that there is a geological epoch, which can be defined by the irreversible impact of human activity. The early stages of human development, from hunter-gatherers to settled farmers, had some environmental impact. But Lewis and Maslin trace the beginnings of a decisive human impact on the planet to the 16th-17th centuries when western colonialism, linked to the rise of global capitalism, began to transform the Americas, followed by the industrial revolution and the growth in population and consumption. The book concludes by calling for a new stage in human development involving radical economic change (away from profit-driven ownership of energy and food supplies), linked to comprehensive technological changes and much closer global cooperation. Two goals they set out are a re-wilding of half the planet and a universal basic income.

The article begins with the arrest of Alejandro Gaitan, who had led peaceful marches during the recent national strike.  He was accused of belonging to 'Primera Linea[, a protest collective singled out for attack by President Duque.  The collective attacked the government for trying to weaken the movement for change through arrests and court cases.

This is an article querying the emphasis on gender in the UN Development Programme. Examining how gender was incorporated into Colombia’s Low-Carbon Development Strategy, they suggest that there are various risks in promoting feminist ideas within ‘mainstream institutional frameworks’.

With a yearly figure of 251 activists assassinated in Colombia in 2020, and an average of 4 every week since the Paris agreement’s adoption in December 2015, indigenous activists in Colombia have risen against violence and environmental destruction with protests beginning in Bogota last month in October 2020.

Reports on three major Latin American countries, Argentina, Colombia and Mexico that witnessed mobilizations against femicide and gender-based crimes in February 2019 comments also on the social and human rights organisations that are demonstrating against gender-based violence.