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

Last week I lost any sort of fear I may still have had of speaking Spanish in front of large audiences. For Colombia’s Semana por la Paz (Week for Peace), I had the opportunity to participate in community and high school meetings in Medellin at the beginning of the week, a 4 hour forum on disarmament with youth groups and community leaders in Bogota, and the Latin American meeting on Disarmament with 150 youth and community members and another Panel Discussion on the Role of Women in Reconciliation in Medellin.

Latin American meeting on Disarmament

The Latin American Meeting on Disarmament was particularly exciting. As the only woman of five international speakers, I had the opportunity to bring a gendered perspective to the discussion on guns. I was the only one to emphasize the role of masculinities in the demand for guns and point out the particular effects of guns on women in the home. Many people came up to me after the presentation to ask questions and comment, including two victims. “What should one do if the aggressor is part of the State?” one woman asked me. She told me that her husband is a policeman and has always been extremely violent. She confessed that she can’t leave because she is economically dependent on him. She was too afraid to be filmed and couldn’t stay long enough to tell me her story in detail, but agreed to send it to me by email. Another woman, whose husband was also a policeman, approached me and agreed to share her story. She wanted to remain anonymous so I took a picture of her hands. I noticed that her skin was covered with white marks. “Did he do this to you?” I asked. She shook her head. “Leucoderma. It’s a disease. From the stress caused by so many years of abuse, fear and intimidation.”

Living under the threat of a gun

We married 38 years ago. Two months after the wedding, I found out that he already had a daughter from another woman. One day he brought the girl, his daughter, and asked me to take care of her. I agreed.

We lived in his parents’ house. My sisters-in-law started inventing stories to create problems, intervening in our relationship. He began to have a mistress. We would argue.

Two years after our wedding, he became violent. He asked to be transferred to a town in Antioquia and there he found another mistress.

He was a policeman. He would threaten me with his gun.

Skin disease from stress due to armed domestic violence

He would arrive at the house and tell me he didn’t want to live with me anymore, pointing a gun at me, to intimidate me. I would say yes, that we could start filling out the legal papers to get a divorce, but then he would change his mind and say he wanted to stay with me after all.

One time, he arrived really drunk. I was very afraid. I took his gun and hid it. It was horrible. He asked me where his gun was. I said I did not know. He became furious and almost destroyed the house searching for the gun. He hit me, mistreated me, roughly battered me for hours and hours demanding the gun. Then he went back out to the street.

I decided to speak with the police commander. He was very understanding and decided to transfer him to Medellin. There, my husband continued to have mistresses. I found them together.

My husband continued to threaten my son and me with the gun.

When he was 12 years old, my son confronted his father. He said he couldn’t stand seeing him treat me like this anymore. Either we would leave or he would. So my husband left, found a piece of land. Now he is retired and no longer has access to a gun, but he continues to be violent when he visits us.

A community social worker. A nursing assistant. A human rights lawyer.

Three women, three professionals, who have dedicated their lives and careers to make their city and their country a better place.

All three are fighting daily to save, defend and help others. All three tell a story of armed domestic violence and explain how this has affected them in their daily struggles to change cultural norms, save lives and defend fundamental rights.

Changing Cultural Norms: Maria Teresa Restrepo

In the Emergency Room: Ligia Fajardo

Promoting basic rights: Liliana Patricia Bedoya

Not only do laws shape and reflect values, but they can even have direct results. A fundamental goal of the campaign to Disarm Domestic Violence is to prevent Domestic violence offenders from being able to carry guns. Harmonizing gun laws and domestic violence laws is key in achieving this goal, and means that laws on guns should mention domestic violence and prohibit anyone with a history of domestic violence from having gun licenses, while domestic violence laws should mention guns in order to confiscate or suspend the carrying of guns for domestic violence offenders.

Four countries, including Canada have already harmonized their laws. The results are quite telling. Canada’s 1995 firearms act requires a license for firearm possession and acquisition, with screening & license renewals every 5 years. A domestic violence report automatically triggers a license review. When an individual wishes to acquire a firearm license, current and previous spouses are notified. Although spousal consent is not required for acquisition, if a spouse has concerns this will trigger a secondary review of the application. From 1995 to 2003, gun homicide rates in Canada decreased by 15% while gun homicide rates for women decreased 40% further showing that laws that focus on the use of guns in the home are most likely to protect women.

Of course, Colombia is a very different country from Canada. An estimated three quarters of the guns here are illegal. Many people ask: what is the purpose of changing the law? Changing laws may not solve the issue completely, but it can make a difference. In many of the cases I’ve collected in the past few weeks in the media and in testimonies, men who kill their wives or ex-wives with guns use legal guns. In particular, these legal guns belong to police officers, guards, escorts or others who need them for their professions. In Bogota, for example, there are about 200,000 armed security guards. Private security companies have very few prerequisites, evaluations or investigations of their armed staff. More shockingly, many police or army officers who were fired for having violated human rights, continue to work in a private security company and continue to access weapons.

Workshop in Cali

Law 1257 of 2008 on violence against women is a major breakthrough. A week ago, I participated in a workshop on this law for women in Cali. Claudia, a lawyer from Sisma Mujer, a women’s group, explained that all 27 women of the Colombian congress, including two known paramilitaries, pro-Uribe (Colombia’s president) and anti-uribe women united to pass this law despite their political differences. The law includes new protection measures in cases of domestic violence, including the suspension of the aggressor’s right to carry a firearm. If a woman goes to report domestic violence, the authorities may “suspend the aggressor’s right of possession, carrying and use of arms. If these firearms are indispensable for the exercise of his or her profession or office, the suspension must be justified.” Although this is an unmistakable improvement several questions remain. How long will the suspension last? How much discretionary power will the authority have? If the weapon is indispensable for the aggressor’s profession, how much justification is needed?

Workshop on law 1257 on violence against women

Another major limit to Colombian laws is that firearm laws do not mention domestic violence which means that domestic violence offenders can buy and use arms legally. Redepaz, one of the three groups which is going to promote the campaign in Colombia, has been lobbying for tougher gun laws for years. In 2007, they collected millions of signatures as well as support from mayors’ of major Colombian cities for a draft law proposal that features five main points, including not letting people with a history of domestic violence or human rights violations access guns. Despite major support for the proposal, this draft didn’t pass because many senators and congressmen in Colombia are shareholders or owners of private security companies. Redepaz is trying to make another attempt and already has five or six congressmen interested in the law.

Perhaps the biggest limit to Colombian laws is that they are not always implemented, especially when resources and political will are lacking. Few of the authorities I’ve interviewed referred to law 1257 on violence against women, showing that work still needs to be done to train authorities and teach women their rights.

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

The US administration has recently decided to allow foreign women with severe cases of domestic violence to be considered for asylum, according to the New York Times. This revolutionary stance was laid out in an immigration court filing for the case of a woman known as L.R., who was victim of armed domestic violence in Mexico.

Why is this change so revolutionary? Refugee law is very demanding: in addition to proving they have been unable to find protection in their home countries, women must prove a “well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.” Bush administration lawyers had argued in LR’s case that victims of domestic violence could not meet these standards, but the new administration went through what NYT calls a “legal odyssey” to find a social group that would apply.

In a court declaration, L.R., who fled to the US with her children in 2004, recounts her endless horror story. Her aggressor, from a very powerful family, began abusing her when she was a teenager. Over the years, he forced her to live with him, raped her at gunpoint, tried to burn her alive when she was pregnant and threatened to kill her family. The police did not help and a judge even tried to seduce her.

Her court declaration highlights the disempowerment and helplessness a woman feels when there’s a gun involved in domestic violence:

“He told my sister he had school business to talk about with me so we needed to be alone in another room. I did not want to go with him but he had a gun in his hand and flashed it at me. It was the first time he had a gun and it terrified me. When he had me alone in his room he pointed the gun at me and threatened to kill me if I did not have sex with him. (…) He told me would kill my sister’s baby first so the others could watch and then he would kill my sister and her 3 year-old if I did not comply with his demand. I was scared of him and he had the gun. He raped me. I was too embarrassed and afraid to tell my sister what had happened. (…) Afterwards, I waited to get on the bus to go to Mexico City with my final belongings. [He] grabbed me from the bus line and pointed the gun in his jacket. He made me come to his house, where he forced me to put on a baggy jacket so that he could hold the gun to me without anyone noticing. He then dragged me to a nearby pay phone and forced me to call my sister and tell her that I loved I [him] and that I was staying with him. He took me to his house and held me captive there for several years.”

Guns make it harder to escape

L.R.’s description of her utter despair and the lack of support from Mexican authorities reminds me of the stories I’ve been told in Colombia, which you will be hearing more of soon: “the police told me that it was a private matter and that my life was not in danger, so they could not help me.”

Ideally, women should be able to find sufficient support and protection in their own countries – which is what we are fighting for in this campaign. Nevertheless, I applaud this bold move that shows the world that domestic violence is not an issue to be slighted. By making this decision, the US government is implicitly supporting IANSA’s campaign and all the associations and actors who work daily in Colombia and around the world against domestic violence.

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: <