Bogota Colombia – With a sit-in in 2013, a group of 60 women, led by Fanny Escobar Hernández, managed to get the Prosecutor’s Office to listen to their concerns, tired of the sexual violence suffered by women in the region and the rampant impunity in the midst of the armed conflict. Ten years later, the association grew and helps women in all the municipalities of the Urabá region to raise their voices, denounce gender violence and seek Justice. Despite the daily difficulties and the lack of institutional support, the organization continues to work to offer relief to forgotten and isolated women who are afraid to denounce or who do not know their rights.
The Association of Women of the Plantón began its work in April 2013 to support and seek Justice after several cases of gender violence in the Colombian city of Apartadó, in the Urabá region. Among these facts, that of three elderly women who were raped on the suspension bridge of the city. When they went to the Prosecutor’s Office, it did not receive their complaints, nor did it grant them protection. Two of them were later killed.
“Nobody cared about them, nobody did anything. I came from Medellín and knew about Law 1257 (the law that protects women from violence) and I had to organize a sit-in in front of the Prosecutor’s Office. We called the radio and television media and told them that we were going to hold a sit-in. We carried very large banners and placed them in the four corners of the Prosecutor’s Office with slogans such as ‘Violence against women is not reconcilable’ or ‘Violence is not allowed’, recalls Fanny Escobar Hernández, now coordinator and representative of the association.
On this day, many women from other municipalities and various associations came to form a group of around 60 people. The local prosecutor agreed to meet with them and more sit-ins were called as they realized that together they could get more pressure and attention.
“The Plantón was born when we saw the need to defend our rights, when we saw the vulnerability that exists among women and that existed at the time, and unfortunately, although we would like not to be there, there is still no commitment from the institutions, the competent authorities, from the administrations. That is the fight we continue to give”, explains Fanny.
“Target of armed groups”
“We are the voice of those who do not dare to speak”, the leader often repeats. The Urabá region, on the border with Panama and between the departments of Antioquia, Córdoba and Chocó, witnessed the atrocious violence of the armed conflict; either by the Army, the paramilitaries or the guerrillas. This region suffered dozens of massacres perpetrated by the different actors in the war, who also used sexual violence as a weapon, a way of trying to dominate the rich territory. In this context, reporting a sexual assault was putting one foot in the grave.
Over the years, the association has collected dozens of testimonies from women who were raped with extreme violence, sometimes by more than 10 men, either because they were trying to defend their family, because they had “challenged” authority, or because of alleged links with the enemy or because “they were in the wrong place”, as if these were reasons to threaten their existence.
“Women have always been this target of the armed groups, this target from the men and even in the homes and it is what continues to be lived here,” says Escobar.
Although the peace agreement signed in 2016 between the Government and the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) guerrillas calmed the situation, violence continues latent with the mobilization of new groups and factions that try to control drug trafficking routes. And in the territories where the conflict is still active, gender violence and the use of women’s bodies as weapons also continue.
“Although it is with different names, we continue with fear, with anxiety, with the fear that the armed groups will continue. Sometimes they allow us access to the territories, sometimes they don’t (…) They also get angry when we give radio programs or when they see us acting, because it is not convenient for them that we bring human rights to the territory”, continues Fanny.
Violence predominates within homes
Currently, and despite the latent nature of the conflict, the type of violence that predominates in this region is intrafamily gender violence. The association deals with cases of femicides within the home, rapes between the stepfather and the girls, husbands who beat their wives and women who, in order to defend themselves, also beat their partners.
“Today the saddest thing is the girls, those under 14 years of age. They are the ones who run a lot of risk and danger”, reveals Fanny.
When a woman is in danger at home, the challenge for the association is to provide her with security. But the places to receive them are in Medellín, and a mother with children cannot go so easily. For this reason, the association works to have a house, a center, where it could welcome these people.
“One of our objectives is to have a house to help these women, to be able to offer them a room if they are in danger while the situation can be controlled or taken to another municipality,” says Sandiego Zambrano, vice president of the association.
Minorities also carry scars from violence
The LGBTIQ+ community is especially vulnerable to gender-based violence and stigmatization. The Women of the Plantón even received complaints that pointed to the security forces.
“We even have complaints from the Army itself that has raped the boys who have gone to pay for service just because they are gay or transsexual, they rape them,” laments Fanny.
The organization received 97 complaints from these people and took them to Bogotá so that they could present their complaints about the risk they run in Urabá.
On the other hand, the indigenous population is also extremely vulnerable: the association received around 200 complaints of sexual violence by indigenous women.
“It is a population that is too vulnerable, there are women who have been raped up to seven times”, explains Fanny.
In addition, the fact of living in isolated territories makes the presence of the association more difficult. Generally they cannot receive good medical care and consequently their physical and mental life is seriously impaired.
The same happens with rural women, since sometimes it takes a day by boat to access the territory.
Facing institutional and state absence
The women in the sit-in face a major obstacle in their work: the lack of institutional support. There is a lack of public policies, resources, laws, etc. Although they managed to sign an agreement to work on the prevention and eradication of this violence with all the mayors of the region, this is not being fulfilled. In some cases, the association managed to find allies in local governance, but many times, they do not receive this support.
“We would like to do more, the desire is there, the human capital too, but the resources and the articulation with the administration have been impossible,” denounces Fanny.
People no longer trust either the Mayor’s Office or the Police and prefer to turn to independent organizations. The Women of the Plantón are now a reference in the region.
“Sometimes the women call the Mujeres del Platón and the associations first than the Police or institutions because they run the risk of being re-victimized. In addition, when one leaves the office, the perpetrator already knows that she was denounced. They mistrust the institutions to talk about”, explains Fanny.
Revictimization occurs when the same people who should support and defend survivors of gender violence hold them accountable for what happened to them, arguing, for example, that they did not have to dress as they did at the time of an attack.
The association does not receive funding from any state or local organization, but from international organizations with which they work on various projects. They also go hand in hand with universities and train women to be able to train others and thus take their projects to other territories.
Towards collective healing?
The Mujeres del Plantón provide judicial, administrative and psychological help to women in need. The association has two psychologists, two social workers, a lawyer and several managers who can indicate the way forward for women who decide to report an act of violence.
More than 200 women from the association managed to receive financial compensation for the violence they suffered. They were compensated with an aid of between 20 and 27 million pesos (between 4,000 and 5,500 dollars) for their cases.
But more than that, now these women form a community.
“In San Pedro de Urabá a very good job is being done, the women are daring. In Vigía del Fuerte, on the other hand, they marched for the first time this year”, Fanny rejoices.
The same women who had suffered sexual violence and who decided to raise their voices for the rights of their partners were able to witness the relief and healing process of other women.
“There are women who arrived at the sit-in and did not dare to speak, to tell their story, or to say their name, and today there are those who have left the sit-in prepared to defend themselves, and I am one of them,” says Sandiego.
Although the Women of the Plantón allow survivors of gender violence to vent, come out of silence and find relief, for them the past is not forgotten.
“We do not say healing, but I do unload, I do mourn, because it is not forgotten, when we say that we heal it is because the pain is gone, we speak without crying, we speak without this anguish, we speak without this tremor in our hands,” Fanny details, before continuing:
“Whenever I talk about my subject, my rapes, which were three, and whenever I talk about the death of my children and my partner, I get a very strong chill, despite the psychologists, despite everything that I have (…) There are wounds that, although we can talk about them, will never be forgotten. It’s like when you break a mirror and put it back together, it will never be the same. This is how we women victims are, we are like this broken mirror, we will never be the same again.
Sometimes Fanny feels overwhelmed or frustrated, but when she sees that the association has a real impact on women, her desire to continue her fight returns.
“Sometimes we feel like saying ‘no more’, but seeing that there are four women every morning who come knocking on the door, we cannot let go of this flag”, she concludes.
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