{"id":22159,"date":"2026-04-17T16:24:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T21:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elturbion.com\/?p=22159"},"modified":"2026-04-17T16:24:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T21:24:17","slug":"defending-life-as-a-woman-the-risks-faced-by-female-environmental-activists-in-colombia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elturbion.com\/?p=22159","title":{"rendered":"Defending life as a woman: the risks faced by female environmental activists in Colombia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Andr\u00e9s G\u00f3mez<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Women in Colombia play a major role in socio-environmental transformation processes. According to a survey conducted by the National Environmental Licensing Agency (ANLA) in June 2024, women accounted<\/a> for over 42% of all those identifying as environmental defenders, yet little is known about the specific risks they face in safeguarding the planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A recent example of this lack of clarity is the public report<\/a> presented in 2025 by the Attorney General\u2019s Office, which states<\/a> that between 2016 and 2024, 1,372 murders of human rights defenders were recorded, but does not specify who was killed for their work as an environmentalist. Marl\u00e9n Ar\u00e9valo, an environmental and human rights leader and representative on the National Guarantees Committee, speaks of the progress achieved so far but insists on the lack of differentiation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The work we have done on the Guarantees Committee with my colleague, who is the women\u2019s delegate, has been very, very interesting, and in terms of public policy, we at least managed to get the term \u2018environmental defender\u2019 included, because it wasn\u2019t there before \u2013 they lump us all together.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The Public Prosecutor\u2019s Office also reports<\/a> that between 2016 and 2024, 14 women were murdered simply for being women and exercising social leadership: three of the cases are inactive, four are under preliminary investigation, four are at trial, and three more are in the sentence enforcement phase. And in the case of enforced disappearance, the Prosecutor\u2019s Office reports that from 2016 to 2024 it has records of 40 cases under preliminary investigation, 14 at the investigation stage, 6 at trial and 4 in the enforcement of sentences, but does not provide disaggregated information on which of these involve women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Illustration: cj_dsgn<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Prosecutor\u2019s Office, the institution responsible for investigating crimes and prosecuting criminal cases in Colombia, does not report disaggregated data on environmental leaders, nor does it distinguish between men and women who have been murdered or disappeared due to their environmental work; it also failed to respond to the formal request sent by the newspaper enquiring about this matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is essential to understand the distinct risks faced by those who safeguard the planet\u2019s ecosystems, due to pressure from both legal and illegal extractive multinationals, and that these ecosystems are, increasingly under greater pressure, and those leading socio-environmental movements resisting the voracity of mining and extensive monoculture have become their enemies, particularly in South America and the Caribbean. Environmentalists such as Marl\u00e9n Ar\u00e9valo comment on this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Last June, I had the opportunity to participate in the final stages of drafting the public policy [for human rights defenders], as they had been working on it since around 2022\u20132023. … When I got there and started talking about environmental issues, curiously enough, the institutional representatives kept silencing me and saying: \u2018No, that will be dealt with later\u2019; \u2018No, look, that won\u2019t be addressed here\u2019. Even fellow human rights defenders said: \u2018A defender is a defender, and that\u2019s that!\u2019. And I would say: \u2018What do you mean, a defender is a defender, and that\u2019s it? This is the country where the most environmental defenders are murdered because of the extractive industry.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Marl\u00e9n is not wrong in her analysis. The organisation Global Witness states<\/a> that between 2012 and 2024, 2,253 environmental defenders were murdered worldwide, and reports that 509 cases occurred in Colombia. The NGO, which specialises in reporting crimes against environmental defenders, also reports that in 2024, 146 people were murdered for defending their rights to their territories and to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, 120 of them in Latin America. Almost a third of the murders took place in Colombia, where 48 people were killed for defending life, four of them women:<\/p>\n\n\n\n