Colombian Women to Visit Congress to Speak on Human Rights, Poverty and Trade

A delegation of six Colombian women will visit Washington on July 23-27 to meet with members of Congress and key partner organizations and discuss trade and war in Colombia from a women’s perspective. After Washington two of the women will travel with AFSC to New York City through August 1 to meet with grassroots groups, women- and human rights-focused NGOs as well as members of Congress in their home district.

All grassroots leaders of Colombian civil society, this extraordinary delegation includes trade unionists, lawyers, indigenous and Afro-Colombian leaders, and women representing communities displaced by the civil conflict.

The delegation will present up-to-date perspectives on violence and threats against trade unionists, the growing numbers of internally displaced people, and continuing abuses of human rights. They will also present their point of view on how Colombia’s rural poverty will likely be worsened by the trade agreement with the United States now before Congress.

The delegation is a result of collaboration between AFSC, Oxfam America, the Alliance for Responsible Trade and the Washington Office on Latin America.

The members of the delegation are:

• Beatríz Fuentes, president of the flower-cutters union Sintrasplendor at the company Splendor, which is owned by the U.S. corporation Dole and exports cut flowers.
• Martha Díaz, president of the civil servants’ union in Santander state, who has received numerous threats.
• Emerenciana Chicunque, leader of the Katmenza indigenous community in Putumayo, southern Colombia, an area of recent attacks by paramilitary squads on indigenous and other people.
• Pilar Rueda Jiménez, anthropologist and professor at La Salle University, Bogotá and leader of the alliance “Make Trade Fair”, a coalition of more than 30 unions and human rights and development groups across Colombia promoting the rights of women workers.
• Maura Nasly Mosquera Mosquera, lawyer and assistant to the National Conference of Afro-Colombian Organizations.
• Alba Lucia Giraldo, head of household and leader of the grassroots group Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, which has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by the American Friends Service Committee, and one of the millions of Colombians forcibly displaced from their homes due to threats from paramilitary groups.