Being a female social leader in Colombia: a black hole

Photo: Ana Milena. All Rights Reserved.

Ana Milena Villa Villa put on her gym clothes and left her
house towards a black hole in which what made her feel most alive in this life
suddenly made her most fear death. The black hole of one threat that turns life
into death. 

Upon arriving at the gym after crossing the colourful
winding streets of her neighbourhood Nelson Mandela on the outskirts of
Cartagena, she realised that the man with whom she had shared a glance on a
motorbike a short time before had followed her and he was armed.  

That same man was waiting for her to threaten
her with death when she left the complex, and it wouldn’t be the last threat
she would receive. 

Ana Milena Villa Villa, delegate of the Community Action
Council of Sector Las Vegas in the neighbourhood of Nelson Mandela, was
threatened with death because she expends every word she has on fighting for a
better life for the inhabitants of her neighbourhood.

She was threatened
because her empathy distinguishes her from those who fear her capacity to
change the world. She was threatened because she is a social leader.

Unfortunately, the systematic murder of political and social
leaders in Colombia is far from a new phenomenon.

The recent growth in murder rates of social leaders has been compared many times with the genocide of the 1980s and 90s against the Unión Patriotica that ended the lives of around 3000 of its members.

The recent growth in murder
rates of social leaders has been compared many times with the genocide of the
1980s and 90s against the Unión Patriotica, a left-wing political movement of
disarmed ex-guerrilla members, that ended the lives of around 3000 of its
members.

This alarming phenomenon has resurfaced with the deaths of more than
311 social leaders since January of 2016, and the beginning of the peace
negotiations.

The campaign #NosEstánMatando (they’re killing us) on social
media and the huge popular mobilisation on the streets of Colombia have
impelled the creation of an international dialogue surrounding the current
tragedy that the country is experiencing.

However, a gendered perspective is
also necessary in order to understand how this crisis has manifested itself in
the context of the patriarchal society in which we live, where female leaders
have a clear disadvantage when it comes to evaluating their risk of
experiencing violence. 

The story of Ana Milena Villa Villa diversifies this
dialogue, and it helps us to understand the current crisis from a much-needed
gendered perspective that is not as present as it should be. 

The turning point 

The moment in which Ana Milena decided to become a social
leader was a turning point in her life. She saw that the management of the Community
Action Council of Nelson Mandela was inadequate to address the needs of her
community, a settlement that began to drastically grow around 1994 when
individuals displaced by the conflict began arriving from regions such as
Urabá, the south of Bolívar and Cesar. Today, it is estimated that around
19,995 people live in Nelson Mandela. 

“The majority of the population in the territory where I
live are displaced, therefore I decided to start working with children, young
people, and teenagers in situations of risk of falling into drug addiction,
prostitution, gang violence, unwanted pregnancies…”

Her own story is one of a woman marked by domestic violence,
of a woman who was able to turn her pain into a positive force for change that
can help other women of her community in similar situations.

“I felt the need to work, for my community, for women, to
empower them so that they began to understand the different types of gender
based violence that exist, what were their rights, the laws that protected
them.”

Although the majority of residents of Nelson Mandela arrived
to escape the violence of war, the lack of state presence in the neighbourhood
created a scenario in which criminal gangs eventually prospered there.

Being a female social leader in the context of the murders and death threats that social leaders all over Colombia are currently experiencing represents a greater disadvantage due to gender discrimination and the gender based violence that women are already often subject to.

Various social leaders that stood up to denounce the
precarious living conditions in Nelson Mandela were murdered over the last
decades in a context of absolute impunity, and organised crime continues to be
the most pressing issue the neighbourhood’s inhabitants face.

For women, the risk
is higher

It can’t be denied that machismo is a universal problem,
however its manifestations tend to vary significantly depending on the cultural
context.

“In Colombia, machismo is very notorious in every sphere,
such as in education, politics, the workplace, organisations like the community
action councils, etc. Women always tend to occupy a lower rung in the
hierarchy.”

In her Community Action Council, she occupies the second
hierarchical tier and in the Confederation, there are absolutely no women. She recognises
that “there’s a lot of discrimination for the mere fact that you’re female”.

Being a female social leader in the context of the murders
and death threats that social leaders all over Colombia are currently
experiencing represents a greater disadvantage due to gender discrimination and
the gender based violence that women are already often subject to.

It is also
worth pointing out that gender based violence is far more prevalent in areas in
which poverty affects many households, and where there is a lack of state
presence to protect women from their aggressors, like in Nelson Mandela.

“Due to the fact that you’re a woman, you’re more
vulnerable. A woman is more fragile, more fearful, more sensitive, thus she is
easy bait for any would be predator to gnaw away at”.

She perceives the difference between her situation after
suffering various death threats and the situation of her male co-workers who
have also received death threats.

Ana no longer walks the streets of her
neighbourhood, she has stopped working, and has had to give up her final
semester of her degree in Physiotherapy, 
a degree she undertook because of her passion for helping the most
vulnerable of her community who have no means to travel to receive treatments
elsewhere.

She has stopped doing everything she loved because she feels
unprotected and vulnerable. Meanwhile she remains locked up at home, many of
her male co-workers go out as if “nothing had happened”. 

Her condition as a woman regarding her family
responsibilities and her role as a mother mean that any threat received becomes
ten times more terrifying.

She’s received threats directed at her and her
family, and as a natural consequence, fears for her daughters. They receive
threats and intimidating messages from strangers on motorbikes, through fake
profiles on social media, and perhaps the most sinister of all, hidden in
bouquets of flowers sent to her home. 

As a mother and head of her household, she also fears the
consequences of not being able to leave her home to work. Her economic
independence, the only guarantee women have of leading a dignified life free of
financial coercion, is in grave danger. 

But love overcomes
fear

Even though she awakens to the feeling of fear every day,
she won’t give up on her dream of helping her community, and of empowering the
residents of Nelson Mandela, the majority of which are exhausted of having to
face up to the violence of organised crime and of poverty.

Women are synonymous with peace, love, fighting for what they believe in, and giving to others, therefore there is no space for Ana Milena to give up without having exhausted everything she has.

She will continue
fighting so that one day a fairer and better Colombia is within reach. 

“A desire to serve, love for what you do, for what you
deliver, should always motivate you every day to be stronger, to overcome, to
think that it’s fleeting and that you must be a reference for others.”

Despite
feeling unsafe when she walks the streets of the place she calls home, her
fight continues from the 4 walls of her home with the help of her co-workers
and other social leaders.

Women are synonymous with peace, love, fighting for what
they believe in, and giving to others, therefore there is no space for Ana
Milena to give up without having exhausted everything she has for her community
and her family. 

As much as words aren’t enough to convey the immense courage
and grandeur of her spirit, Ana Milena tries to convey that her fight is one
that she won’t give up on easily.