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Columbia

With Banana Planation Workers
Victoria (far right) with Witness for Peace and Banana Workers at the National Congress of Women Workers (2004).
With
 The Association for the Families of the Detained and Disappeared (ASFADDES) was born in 1982 and came out of the disappearance of 13 students. People went to the government to try and find out about their family members to no avail.

 ASFADDES was founded to find out information about family members and to work for peace, justice and human rights. The organization has several areas of work, one of which is education and human rights. Education is a very important focus because there have been many new laws and reforms that have an impact on human rights.



Displacement of AfroColombians
It has been a long time and continuous struggle by a number of Afro-Colombian
organizations for our territorial rights. The 1991 Constitution was able to get passed
transitory Article 55, which deals with lands in the Pacific coast watershed, particularly
lands along river banks. Out of that transitory article, Law 70 was created, which covered our territorial right to participate in local government organization as an Afro-Colombian. Law 70 also gives us certain cultural and organizational rights as Afro-Colombians. We don’t assume the land is for private use. It's for public use and should be available for everybody. So we have been working to get the collective title to the land as the law allows us. The most important thing is that these lands we hold in
collective title are permanent, cannot be transferred/sold/no liens by third parties
(Witness for Peace, 2002).
 Afrodes

Witness for Peace has visited AFRODES in Soacha several times over the years, including visits in 2001 and again in July/August 2002 and the quote above is from the 2002. AFRODES, founded in 1999, is an organization that helps displaced AfroColombians (Podur and Witness for Peace, 2001). In November 2004, our Witness for Peace delegation visited Soacha but this time we focused on the voices of women.

Dorothia Maria Louise Lydia

I came because of the violence. I came with my grand children. We went through a lot of pain. Afrodes helps but it is not enough. There are so many bad times for our children. It is a hard life for women with children. So here I am, without work. They don’t give us work. We don’t have friends here. We have no chickens. We have no farm and we don’t have work. We used to live off agriculture in the mountains. We had a little farm. But we had to leave because of the violence.

I am the head of the household with three children. Right now I am unemployed. It is important to give employment to women heads of households. I come from a small town [in Antioquia], very tranquil. Then one day we found bodies. We were not used to violence. That is why we started our group. We need to organize to protect ourselves. I have been inn the city seven years. No work. I have to be mother and father to my children. My children can’t be in school because there is nobody supporting me. My daughter is in Afrodes kindergarten. Even in the Afrodes kindergarten, you need to support or how could the school remain open.

We lived in Rio Sucio in Choco. My first husband was murdered. We don’t know why they killed him. They gave us 24 hours to leave. We went to a small town then I moved to Quito with two small children. Then I came to Bogotá. I have been here three years. In the beginning I got help from Network Solidarity and priests. I married my second husband and had another child. My children are in school. My husband does day labour sometimes. He has work sometimes, sometimes not. When we do have work we put the money aside so the children can go to school.

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