Healing for Sexual Violence Survivors in Colombia

We are grateful to share some updates of a MADRE partner’s long-term efforts to increase recognition about gender-based persecution.

Proceso de Comunidades Negras (PCN), an Afro-descendant human rights organization in Colombia and longtime MADRE partner, continues to build community solutions to end violence in their territories and foster the work of human rights defenders. In 2023, PCN’s Ilé de Sanación–a program that supports the self-care and psychosocial needs of women leaders–held a retreat in Tumaco, Nariño, focused on the care of the body, mind, and spirit for 13 PCN women leaders. The activities revolved around healing through the use of ancestral practices.

PCN also released a new bulletin with updates from its VigíaAfro observatory. The bulletin documents instances of gender-based violence between January and September of 2023 against Afro-descendant community members by individuals, military members, and non-state armed actors. It calls particular attention to the significant numbers of forced disappearances of Afro-descendant and Indigenous children from communities with high rates of poverty and of deprivations of immediate needs like healthcare and education. This work continues to play an important part in strengthening recognition of past and ongoing crimes committed against Afro-descendant girls, boys, women, and LGBTIQ+ people in Colombia.

Thank you for your partnership and generous support as we work with women and girls’ human rights defenders to end gender-based violence. As we look to MADRE partners for their leadership and knowledge, we create sustainable and global peace for all.