Colombian NGOs have condemned the “high level” of violence against black, indigenous and poor women in a country where the female body has become a “battleground”, W Radio reported Friday.
This was the message from the first presentation of the Support and Defense of Women’s Human Rights in Colombia Round Table.
Claudia Acevedo, one of the organizers of the conference, pointed out that so far in 2011 there have been 29 cases of “femicide” (murders of women) in Colombia. The most recent case is that of two girls who were “abducted, mutilated and buried in a gasoline barrel covered with cement.”
“We are in a country where military organizations have treated women like spoils of war to pressure the family” said Acevedo.
In the same vein, Marina Gallego, the National Coordinator of the Women’s Pacific Route, an umbrella organization incorporating over 300 women’s groups, said that in Colombia, violence has been accepted as a something “normal in day to day life.”
Feminist Claudia Mesia blamed paramilitary and terrorist organizations for the increase of “discrimination against the most disadvantaged groups” within which women suffer “a higher degree of mistreatment.”
Mesia added the need for women to continue working for peace in a country where “judges, journalists and human rights defenders are silenced.”
The Round Table discussions, which take place from Friday until April 3 in Valencia, Spain, will continue to focus on gender violence and especially sexual violence against Colombian women.