An inspirational character

When he was ten years old, Edgar was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up. He gave three answers: a lawyer, a priest and a piano player. “Why a lawyer?” someone asked. “Because it’s the only way in which I can help others, by helping people to know their rights.”

Edgar Mendoza Betancourt grew up in the Aguablanca district, the poorest area of the city of Cali, without electricity or running water. He started working at 12 years old, holding odd jobs selling newspapers, working in construction and as a street vendor.

Growing up at a time when Colombia’s urban guerillas, including the M19, were taking over urban areas, he experienced a great deal of violence. In his own home, his father often attacked and harassed him and his mother. Particularly impacting his childhood were four so-called “crimenes pasionales” (passionate crimes) in his neighborhood where women were killed by their husbands for reasons of jealousy and infidelity. “These are things that impact the life of any human being,” Edgar now confides. “I knew that one day I would change this, turn this experience into something good.”

After completing his military service, he began to work for Empresas Municipales de Cali, or Emcali for short, a municipal-owned company which provides water, telecommunications, and electricity services. The hardships of living in poverty motivated him to find other opportunities and he decided to go to a university. He started studying on his own, reading as much as he could, and through the Instituto Colombiano para el Fomento de la Educacion Superior (ICFES, the Colombian Institute to Promote Higher Education) he had the opportunity to get a Colombian high school diploma (bachillerato) in one single exam. With this certification as “bachiller”, he was able to enter a university. Emcali offered grants for their employees to study, so he applied and received a scholarship.

Studying at the university was very difficult. “Lacking any secondary education, I made lots of spelling mistakes, I was ignorant of many things,” he admits. “Every day I had to make more efforts.” Luckily, many professors and fellow students understood his situation and helped him out. After studying for eight years in the university, he graduated on April 12^th, 2002, at 40 years old, to become a lawyer with a specialization in family law and “contribute to society”. “I love family law because of its social aspect. For me the most fundamental part of social well being starts in the family. I do it because I’m convinced that one has to give back to society.”

Today Edgar fights against domestic violence with Asopropaz, the Asociacion Colombiana de Profesionales por la Paz (Colombian association of professionals for peace). “Why does family violence interest me? First, because in my childhood I was a victim of family violence and then later, by my own behavior I submitted my family to domestic violence. After one has been victim and victimizer, one has the moral obligation to help others get out of the cycle of violence, so that others can find what I found, and others can avoid the mistakes I made. So that other children don’t suffer the same things I suffered and other women don’t suffer what my mother suffered.”

Edgar is now 47 years old and has been practicing family law and helping people for seven years. He considers himself a priest in the sense that he’s an example for his children and tries to maintain strong values in his home. His only frustration is that he hasn’t learned how to play the piano yet.

Edgar Mendoza

Sighs. Groans. Outcries. Shaking of heads.

Everyone is talking at the same time. No one can hear what anyone is saying.

It’s Monday, August 31^st. I’m at a meeting with all the institutions dealing with domestic violence in Cali. The point of the meeting is to agree upon the competence of each institution but people don’t seem to be agreeing very much.

The two main institutions,  “comisarias de familia” – family inspectors – and the Colombian Institute of Family Well Being (Bienestar Familiar) both claim they are doing more than they’re supposed to. Alba Nora Casanova, a police officer from the Child and Adolescent Unit points out that the Unit is the only institution to be open 24 hours. Police officers don’t know where to send children after 4pm and often end up taking them home with them because they can’t bear sending them back to where they live.

Everyone agrees that there aren’t enough resources and there’s no place to send victims of domestic violence, whether they are children or women, other than back to their homes. There also isn’t enough of a network. Institutions need to integrate their efforts.

For me, loose pieces of the puzzle are finally starting to come together. For weeks, I’ve been hearing story after story of victims going to report domestic violence, then being sent from office to office and finally back to their homes, to the same aggressors, to continue living in fear for their lives and the lives of their children. Since I’ve arrived I’ve been wondering: where does the gap lie? Why are all these women and children not receiving adequate protection? Of course the problem is incredibly complex and there are multiple factors. But if the institutions can’t even agree on what their respective functions are, isn’t that already a good explanation of why they send victims from office to office, without ever giving them adequate solutions?

The sub-secretary of Government, Police and Justice, Fortunato García notes that « Medellin has one million more in their budget than Cali » and proposes to create a « special committee » with members of each institution to make a definite agreement on the matter, as well as a committee to deal with the question of shelters. “What do we do in the mean time?” intervenes Martha Espinosa, director of the observatory on family violence. “We must take our responsibility now. Every day, children and women are suffering and police officers can’t always take them home. This has to stop immediately. We must take temporary measures while thinking of a long term solution.”

Deifan Arrechea from the Department of Territory Development and Social Wellbeing speaks up. “We have resources and plans to build ‘hogares de paso’” – shelters for children and women to stay for 8 days when ‘in crisis’. Yet 8 days is not enough. “Where do we send the kids after 8 days?” asks one of the participants. “We need to create permanent homes for the kids and have more shelters for women.”

Ironically, the meeting was held in the Department of Health, where 4 years ago, an employee was shot by her husband and died several hours later in the neighboring hospital. Full story to come…

Domestic homicide in the City's Department of Health

4 years ago, Enelia Garcia, an employee of the Department of Health,

was shot by her ex-husband in her office in front of the cafeteria.

A few days later, I met with Deifan Arrechea and Ana Cristina Hurtado, from the Department of Social Wellbeing. “For us, this meeting was a success! We finally got the decision-makers to come, sit down and recognize the problem. There is a culture of seeing domestic violence as a ‘private matter’, a ‘women’s problem’. We would love to make shelters that could receive more women for a longer time, but there just isn’t the political will or the resources. International pressure might motivate decision-makers to commit more to the issue!” The idea is indeed to put on pressure from the inside and the outside with campaigns of the women activists of Cali and IANSA’s Women’s Network.

For now, Deifan and Ana Cristina are planning to open a shelter to receive 50 women with 3 children each – for 8 days – to find stability, psychological and social assistance as well as a socio-economic contribution to help them become more independent.

This my first vlog! On August 2nd, Colectivo No Violencia (No to Violence) organized a festival against “panfletos” in the district of Aguablanca, one of the most marginalized areas of Cali. Check out my pictures of the festival on flickr (link on right side of this page). Several of the youth groups who participated in the festival would like to start working on Disarming Domestic Violence in their neighborhoods. I’m going to be meeting with them this afternoon.

I’m going to Bogota tomorrow to meet with organizations who might be interested in becoming part of a national campaign against armed domestic violence and lobbying to change laws. Stay tuned when I get back for videos and blogs about how professionnals are affected by armed domestic violence, Colombian laws and their limits, and the particular issue of domestic violence in displaced communities.

Every first Tuesday of the month, Infogénero, an NGO whose aim is to “feminize communication”, invites organizations of all types for a “sala de redaccion” (editorial room). The goal is for civil society organizations to share their agendas, discuss ways to work together, produce campaign materials and construct a common communications agenda. Once they’ve brainstormed together in the editorial room, Infogénero works on getting media coverage of the campaigns.

Women at Infogenero meeting

Successes from the very first Sala de Redaccion in June include planning and broadcasting the “We Women Want Safe Cities” campaign and getting it on the front page of several major newspapers in Cali and making an 18 minute video of sexual violence in the armed conflict in Colombia. “When we get together, we enrich our communications agenda,” explained Adalgiza Charria, from Infogénero.

Presenting videos of causes

At the meeting I attended, I was incredibly impressed and inspired by the activists’ passion, ideas and dedication to the issues. Sitting in a circle, drinking coffee were representatives of women’s rights and feminist groups, including a feminist film and theater group, gay rights groups, as well as representatives of non-violence groups, the mayor’s office and community and cultural organizations from various neighborhoods.

Adalgiza Charria

Norma Lucia

Although their main goal is to improve public policies for women in Cali and get women’s ideas, agendas and concerns in the media, Infogénero is also interested in working with other social campaigns that don’t necessarily focus on women. “We need to democratize information and bring our stories together”, Adalgiza insisted.

In addition to producing information from a feminist perspective, Infogénero aims to raise awareness about the importance of communication and train activists to tell their stories and convince in “three minutes or less”. “We don’t have resources for communication, but we don’t have to be professionals. We must lose our fear of communication. Filming, taking pictures, writing press releases is easy,” emphasized Adalgiza.

A voice for the voiceless

“Communication is not just talking, it’s also acting,” she added. “When we marked the various regions in the city, it was an active, alternative form of communication that was very powerful.” (see the video “We Women Want Safe Cities”)

After watching videos and discussing the achievements of the first Sala de Redaccion, activists began introducing their agendas and campaigns and debating possible forms of action and partnership. A central part of the discussion was how to change traditional, constructed views of gender, including what it means to be a man in Colombia. In this context, I was easily able to introduce the Disarming Domestic Violence campaign. The link between guns and constructions of masculinity really hit home with many of the activists.

Groups working together

Even the mere idea of a gun can have devastating consequences. Last week, Ana Maria* told her story to Martha Lucia, a lawyer at Asopropaz (an organization that assists victims of domestic violence), while I listened in. Her experience illustrates the ties between domestic violence, economic vulnerability, easy access to guns and cultural beliefs which define women as property.

“I’ve been living with him for 8 years,” she began. “I never went to the police because he always promised he wouldn’t do it again.” The two children they had together are 14 months and 6 years old, but her 14-year-old daughter from another relationship had to leave because he abused her sexually and beat her.

As she told her story, her baby girl was running around the office, smiling. Ana Maria’s head kept turning to check on her. “Last week, my baby got sick and I spent the night at the hospital with her. When we got back, he was angry because there was no meal ready for him. He beat me, only stopping because the kids were crying, but usually nothing stops him. Later, I told him, ‘either I’m going to leave, or you have to leave.’ When I said that, he raped me, beat me and told me I had to stay with him because I am his woman and I belong to him.”

When I asked about guns, Ana Maria shook her head and said that he had never owned or used a gun against her. I asked if he has access to a gun. “For sure,” she responded without hesitation.  ”He’s threatened me many times, telling me he can find one very easily, because his friends all have guns – he’s a taxi driver. He says he can get one and kill me, that it wouldn’t cost him a cent.” I asked her if her children are also aware of his ability to find a gun easily. “Of course,” she said. “They live in fear of him too.”

When she finally reported the crime, she was asked to bring proof. She didn’t have any, so the prosecutor made an appointment with both of them. To her distress, her husband denied everything and even accused her of being violent. Later, he took it out on her.

There are no shelters here. Victims of domestic violence are advised to live with family until they can find a place to stay. “I don’t have anywhere to go. My mother doesn’t have any room. We would all be sleeping on the floor, and he might find us there. He knows the place. He could come and hurt us, or kill us.”

Ana Maria almost didn’t come to her appointment with Martha Lucia because she didn’t have enough money for transportation. She does not work, and her husband keeps her locked up most of the time. She’s held jobs in the past, but had to quit or was fired, because she would arrive late feeling weak and covered with bruises or wounds. Sometimes she wasn’t able to come at all. She’s never had a chance to study, but when she tried to take courses at the university, he didn’t let her, because “he’s very jealous”.

Ana Maria’s husband feels that he can rightfully treat her as private property. Because she’s economically dependent on him and believes that he can easily access a gun, she can’t think of where to go and is too afraid to seek help — it’s a vicious circle of subjugation, violence, poverty and fear. It was Ana Maria’s sister who finally called Martha Lucia to make an appointment for her. Thousands of others like her never get even that way out.

*Name changed for her safety

I felt welcomed the moment I entered Fundación MAVI (Mujer, Arte y Vida; Woman, Art and Life) for a campaign called “We Women Want Safe Cities”, three days after my arrival in Cali. Women were sitting and standing in a loose circle, talking, singing and rolling up yellow tape that read “PELIGRO: El Machismo Mata” (Danger: Male Chauvinism Kills). I sat down with them, introduced myself and started rolling up tape too. I expected them to ask me questions, about my accent, where I was from, what I was doing there, but no one did. I was one of them: not a foreigner, not an outsider, just another activist in Cali. All that mattered was that we were all working towards the same goal: women’s empowerment.

“United, together, we feel stronger and more confident”, said Julieth Tamayo, one of the organizers. She struck me as full of energy, poised, compassionate - the type of person who can both inspire and make everyone feel calm and comfortable. A natural leader. When I asked what group she belonged to, she told me that she had been working for years as a community leader and had helped found the Escuela Politica de Mujeres Pacificas (Political School of Women Pacifists). Noticing the absence of women leaders in the peace process with the FARC, Julieth and others had decided to open a space for dialogue about the conflict from a gendered perspective and prepare women to take on leadership roles, promote innovative policies from feminist perspectives and construct alliances between feminist organizations at all levels.

Julieth Tamayo

The “We Women Want Safe Cities” campaign, organized by the Escuela Politica de Mujeres Pacificas and supported by many other women’s groups, aimed to raise awareness about the dangers that women encounter in the city and promote women’s rights and freedom in Cali. The women separated off into groups to mark areas known to be dangerous for women with the yellow tape saying “PELIGRO: El Machismo Mata”. My group went to a bridge crossing over a highway and linking a health clinic to the bus terminal. During the day, the bridge is busy, but as soon as it gets dark, women prefer to run across the highway rather than walk alone on the bridge, where they risk being mugged.

Taking back the city

The campaign reminded me of “Take Back the Night” in the US. The goals the women spoke of were similar: “We women want a city with safe public transportation, where movement is comfortable and harmonious. We women want a city with lots of public parks, calm spaces, filled with colors and flavors, in which one can breathe, run, feel safe and joyous. We want a Cali filled with games, in which we can dress at our every whim, walk alone at any hour of the day without fear of being raped or robbed, claiming back the night, the company of the moon and the ability to dream under starry nights.”

After raising awareness by speaking with passersby, the groups rejoined in a park called San Antonio to view banners and alternative maps of the city; listen to speeches, poems and songs; watch traditional dances and celebrate local culture “that deserves to be enjoyed without fear”.  Norma Lucia, one of the organizers, declared: “We at the Political School of Women Pacifists believe that male chauvinism does in fact kill. Not only do men kill each other fighting in the streets, competing to show off their masculinity, but they kill our hope, our confidence, our desire to go out at night, our desire to dress the way we want… Afraid to go out to the street, we could say, ‘Ok, we’ll stay at home’, but even at home they kill us!”

Here’s a video I made of the afternoon: <

I just arrived in Cali yesterday and I cannot think of a more exciting time to work on gun-related issues in Colombia. In the past few weeks, municipal governments have been implementing a variety of ambitious disarmament campaigns, whose media coverage, which includes leading newspapers and magazines from left to right, is remarkable.

Bogotá and Cali’s municipalities have been particularly active in the past few weeks. Bogotá’s campaign, “Amar es desarmarte” (To love is to disarm) includes pedagogical work in neighborhoods, artistic performances and a program to swap weapons for vouchers of up to 300,000 pesos (150$US). The District Administration of Bogotá also banned the carrying of arms in the capital, including for those who have gun licenses, for 10 days until July 3rd. The authorities aim to reduce violent deaths by up to 13%. In May, Cali launched “El Plan Desarme” which prohibited the bearing of arms for a month. According to the police, 128 firearms were confiscated during that period.

These campaigns, which have been going on since 1996, have not, however, been sufficient to address the devastating impact of weapons, as figures of the National Institute of Legal Medicine show. The murder rate in Bogotá, one of the highest in the world with 21 per 100,000 inhabitants, is still below other Colombian cities like Cali, with a rate of 67 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.

Andres Restrepo, Assistant Secretary of the municipal government of Bogotá, emphasized to Semana that these campaigns are part of “an effort to ‘remove’ from the collective consciousness …that through the use of arms one can resolve conflicts.” Restrepo noted that there is an estimated three to four million firearms in Colombia, of which only one million are legal; he also added that there is no precise data about the illegal market.

Clara Lopez, Secretary of the municipal government of Bogotá, reported to El Espectador that “in over 16 citizen disarmament campaigns, there have been delivered 6369 guns, 91,111 rounds of ammunition and 651 explosive devices.”

“Disarmament is a public necessity, because the more weapons are held by the public, whether legal or illegal, the more insecurity there is, and the more likely crime, homicide, robbery and personal injury will occur. Arms are used as a form of domination over others; they rule out dialogue and peaceful resolution of conflicts. Disarmament is a national imperative”, she added.

Guns are even becoming an electoral issue, though a minor one. The Liberal presidential hopeful and former Chief Prosecutor Alfonso Gómez Mendez told El Tiempo that if elected President, he would impose general disarmament in the country. Although he is only a minor candidate and not the favorite of the party, his strong position on the issue is still noteworthy. <

This is an approximate translation of his speech to El Tiempo: “Not a day goes by without us hearing on the radio, seeing on television or reading in the newspapers that citizens, innocent citizens, are victims of what we have come to call the ‘stray bullets.’ This is a result of the fact that many people own arms in this country. If I become president, I will implement a policy of general disarmament. The only people who can use weapons are members of the police, the army and State security forces, but citizens have no reason to be armed. I will regain the State’s monopoly of the use of arms. We citizens must trust them and cease to bear arms.”

Stay tuned for the next blog post about how women are being killed by those who love them most because of the presence of guns in their homes!