Katherine Ronderos was the 2017 winner of the "International Young Women’s Peace Award”, from Open Democracy, in Yerevan, Armenia. She has featured in Colombian's mainstream media talking about the role of women in peacebuiding, women in disarmament and the prevention of sexual violence in armed conflict contexts. Previously, Katherine was the director of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in Colombia (WILPF), and contributed to the inclusion of the gender perspective into Colombian peace process.
Katherine Ronderos will guide us through the situation in Colombia during the pandemic in this webinar, trends in repression, and what people are doing about it. The outbreak has only made things worse for women human rights defenders in Colombia. Paramilitaries have ignored lockdown measures and have been targeting defenders trapped in their houses, particularly those working on environmental issues.
Government responses to the crisis such as curfews have had a disproportionate impact on women and girls. UNICEF has spoken of the ‘shadow pandemic’ of domestic violence, while the National Council for the Administration of Justice reported a spike in the number of sexual offences in the first three weeks of the crisis, constituting 36% of all crimes reported.