The leaders try to prevent armed actors from using women for slavery and sexual exploitation.
Photo: EFE – Ernesto Guzm·n?
On April 14, in Cúcuta, social leader and journalist Jaime Vásquez was murdered by two men on a motorcycle. The homicide, which occurred two days after having reported an alleged case of corruption from the Departmental Assembly, is not unrelated to what different leaders of the department face. However, those who have felt the greatest anxiety are women.
It is those leaders, the same ones who try to prevent armed actors from using women for the purposes of slavery and sexual exploitation, who are threatened. This is the case of Alejandra Vera, director of the Corporación Mujer, denounce y muévete, who for four years has faced persecution in the armed conflict for her work in the region.
According to the Somos Defensores Program, there have been 40 murders of human rights defenders in Norte de Santander between January 2019 and September 2023. In Cúcuta, 11 cases have been registered, four of community leaders and four of community leaders, two of them peasants, and one women’s leader The threats do not give up and although there is no exact record, Vera affirms that in her environment she has more than 15 leaders who face intimidation to date.
“In Norte de Santander there are 36 criminal gangs, so it is often difficult for institutions to find who is sending the threats and even more so when these groups are possibly linked to dissidents from the FARC, the ELN or the Clan del Golfo,” says Vera. to The Spectator.
In 2020, threats against him began. Vera remembers that she learned of the case of a woman who was kidnapped and at risk of human trafficking by a man who belonged to an armed group. “We did the entire process of releasing her and transferred her to Bogotá, however, I began to receive threats and the Prosecutor’s Office did nothing,” she says. The persecution she received from this man led her to leave Cúcuta and go with her family to Bogotá for a year. During this time, the Protection Unit (UNP) decided not to provide her with a protection scheme and this forced her to abandon the activism and leadership that she exercised in the area.
At the end of 2021, he returned to Cúcuta to carry out investigative work with The New York Times newspaper. “We approached the downtown area, that is where the majority of sexually exploited women converge. Some armed men approached us and told us that they did not want to see us there anymore, even though we left, they chased us by car for 30 minutes. approximately,” Vera recalls. The New York Times made a public complaint about the threat and direct persecution they had suffered, but again the UNP did not provide them with a security plan, but rather they carried out a risk study again to verify the situation.
According to what gender observatories have been reporting, the infringement or violation of the human rights of women and girls in the city of Cúcuta has increased more than 500%. The Corporación Mujer, denounce y muévete reports that, from 2016 to 2024, 7,000 women displaced by the armed conflict and migrants have been victims of human trafficking and sexual exploitation networks, of which number, 45% were under 18 years of age.
Given this fact, Vera has tried to reduce the risk factors for women in border areas, but the presence of armed groups has made the work difficult. After insisting before the UNP and three studies, the entity provided her with a light protection measure, that is, her insecure situation only requires an escort to safeguard her life. “My biggest risk is having to go to areas where different criminal interests converge and where human trafficking and sexual exploitation take place; however, I have to do it because, as a rights defender, it is my job,” agrees Vera.
Exercise leadership from anonymity
For Andrea*, who prefers to give her testimony anonymously, leadership in Cúcuta has not been an easy task. She, who is a social leader in the area and a Venezuelan migrant, has been denouncing human trafficking for more than three years. During this time, threats and extortion have become her daily bread. “A person who belonged to the Tren de Aragua was intimidating me, so I reported him to the Prosecutor’s Office, two weeks later, this guy knew that I had accused him and my safety and that of my family worsened,” says Andrea.
It is difficult to understand how her attacker found out that he had been reported, for her the only reason is that there is a criminal and corruption network between the Tren de Aragua and the authorities of the region. Since that moment her life has become a “martyrdom”, the risk studies that have been carried out on her have been insufficient to provide her with protection and her work with women victims of exploitation has increased her risk of impunity. of the complaint she filed.
A report from the Public Force warns that from 2014 to 2017, the Aragua Train began to take over the border areas of Colombia. Through the route that migrants travel, since 2018 they have arrived with greater force to cities such as Cúcuta and Villa del Rosario. And currently the largest area where this armed group converges is in La Parada, a place where Andrea and other human rights organizations focus their work.
The Aragua Train is currently one of the groups that has the greatest presence in Norte de Santander, and has subjugated the population through the control of drug trafficking, extortion, kidnappings, murders, migrant trafficking and detonation. of explosive devices. “A few months ago, a woman who was a victim of sexual exploitation by this armed group was murdered with an explosive pamphlet in Las Mercedes Park. We reported it, but the Prosecutor’s Office did nothing,” recalls Andrea.
According to the leader, in La Parada, an area governed by the criminal gang, there is a CAI of the National Police, however, this place has become a key point for human trafficking, the distribution of micro-trafficking and the exploitation of minors. , a fact that happens in the public light of the authorities. Given this panorama, the leader is aware of the risk involved in defending the rights of those women who are in a vulnerable condition. To date, she does not have any protection protocol and her complaints to the Prosecutor’s Office and the UNP have been in vain.
“Accessing justice in a territory where various groups outside the law conflict is very difficult. As a leader who protects girls and women victims of pedophile and exploitation networks, my life is constantly at risk. Every day they make threatening calls to me where they give me 6 hours to leave the city,” she says.
With this panorama, women leaders and human rights defenders call on the State to intervene in Norte de Santander in order to protect the lives of those who are at risk. “Cúcuta is one of the most dangerous cities in Latin America, to that we must add the exploitation networks. We hope that the government pays attention to the situation of violence that we are experiencing,” concludes Andrea.
Andrea*, name changed at the request of the witness.
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