The International Day of No Violence Against Women, kicked off 16 days of Public Actions in Medellin, Colombia on November 25 to raise awareness and mobilize support for combating violence against women. Organized locally by a caolition of human rights organizations including student groups, women’s groups, human rights NGOs, anti-war groups, and other local grass roots organizations, the campaign named, ‘For the right to exist, think and make decisions: 16 days of public action for women, dignity and peace’ is part of an international initiative started by the United Nations which runs until International Human Rights Day on December 10.

The International Day of No Violence Against Women, kicked off 16 days of Public Actions in Medellin, Colombia on November 25 to raise awareness and mobilize support for combating violence against women. Organized locally by a caolition of human rights organizations including student groups, women’s groups, human rights NGOs, anti-war groups, and other local grass roots organizations, the campaign named, ‘For the right to exist, think and make decisions: 16 days of public action for women, dignity and peace’ is part of an international initiative started by the United Nations which runs until International Human Rights Day on December 10.

“We’ve joined hands to walk together and fight a system that oppresses us and fills us with death – we need you on our side to make the dream of liberty and justice in Colombia a reality,” read a statement made by the student group TEJUNTAS.

The 16 days kicked off with a well-attended march through central Medellin and subsequent artistic space for street theater and musical presentations. Theater groups performed, first in the sun and later in the rain, with their work highlighting the bleak reality for women in Colombia and calling for a united movement to fight the root sources of machismo, impunity, and violence against women. During a street theater performance by the Network of Feminists and Anti-Militarists, the three aggressors against women were a priest, a judge, and a policeman. “Capitalism and Imperialism enslave women,” said a representative of Anti-Imperialist Brigades; the state is implicated in systematic violence against women, both in context of the war and impunity for acts in civil society.





Violence against women is on the rise in Colombia and was one of the concerns raised at the United Nations Universal Periodic Review of Colombia in April of this year. The Colombian state agreed to, “prioritize policy to protect women’s rights, prevent sexual violence and continue to promote the women’s rights.” Even so, the Ombudsman’s office affirms there have been 15,640 cases of domestic violence against women, 5,545 cases of sexual abuse, and 514 homicides with female victims in the first semester of 2013. For organizations that work in women’s rights, the impunity for crimes against women is alarming. Catalina Vásquez of Medellin-based Vamos Mujer explained in a recent interview that there are many cases, like those of domestic violence, where the aggressors are known, but the state and the laws fail to investigate or seek justice for the women.





In addition to the machista and patriarchal society, Colombia is a country at war. Armed parties in the Colombian conflict continue to use sexual violence as a strategy of war and terror. According to Anti-imperialist Brigades, every six hours a women is abused within the context of the armed conflict. In non-direct conflict zones, the National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences, using statistics from reported violence from the complete year of 2012, reports that every 11 minutes a women in Colombia is abused by her partner and every three days a woman in Colombia is killed by her partner. The Feminist and Anti-Militarist Network Red uses this grim reality in their awareness campaign, ‘love kills women.’ In the march, one rhyming outcry was, ‘Who killed them, who raped them? These are state crimes and nobody saw anything.’





“It’s important to end this embedded idea of ‘crimes of passion’ that normalizes men killing their partners out of some sick version of ‘love’ and look at the facts that femicide and violence against women are a structural and institutionalized reality, both in practice and impunity,” said one women activist.





Earlier this month in the Colombian capital of Bogota a woman was raped at a popular upper-class restaurant and bar, which led to protests demanding an investigation into the crime on behalf of the exclusive clientele. Locally, in Medellin, two women were killed the very same day as the march blocked downtown streets, their deaths pushing the total number of assassinated women in Antioquia (the department of which Medellin is the capital) over 200 to date this year.





During these two weeks in Medellin there will be several events trying to raise awareness in some of the more peripheral neighborhoods of the city. There is also a concern for the conditions for women in the local prison. The final organized protest of the event will be held at the University of Antioquia on December 10, called ‘liberate our bodies, liberate our territories.’

Laura Blandón of the Confluencia de Mujeres explained the intent of the these two weeks to Colombia Informe. “It’s not just one day, or one march. We want to create public actions that articulate different initiatives that work in women’s interests or work for women,” said Blandón.