WOMEN'S SECTOR IN PLANETA PAZ

One of the main objectives of the organisation Planeta Paz concerns women’s struggles and the clear adoption of a gender perspective throughout all their activities and projects. According to the organization, the gender category is central and articulates, from the intersectional point of view, with other categories of difference: age, race, ethnicity, social class, urban/rural origin; recognizes diversity in equitable conditions and emphasise the features of a population in terms of genders (women and non-binary people), and sexual orientation (LGTBIQ+ people), considering the necessary visibility they should have in political analysis of conflicts and peace.

There are a few reasons why Planeta Paz adopts this view:

Enrich the characterization of conflicts by considering how their dynamics affect the opportunities available for different people in their diversities.
Make visible the differences in the participation in the elaboration of social and peace-building agendas and review whether these processes enhance or inhibit particular skills in their diversities.
Facilitate the evaluation and the further elaboration of public policies aimed at addressing the specific problems of women and LGBTIQ+ people in relation to regional conflicts.
Identify gender differences, in addition to making visible power relations, discrimination, subordination, as well as the disadvantages or opportunities present in intersectionality with other categories.
Contribute to the design of specific strategies and actions for disadvantaged human groups.

Some lines of analysis

Different organizations of women and queer people have yielded some lines of analysis that Planeta Paz takes into consideration in order to advance the recognition of the specificities of womanhood and divergent identities in the face of conflict and peace-building. These lines are: 1) the body as territory and place of conflict, 2) political participation is more than equality, it implies the construction and updating of territorial agendas for the strengthening and impact of organisational processes, 3) the school as a central place in the pedagogy on gender relations, 4) the leading role of women in the defence of the territory and its relation with the contributions on agroecology, and 5) care as life support, ethical and political mandate, expressed from the different perspectives of economies and care systems with a gendered focus. Among those, a particular focus is needed for the first two, mainly because many of the activities carried out by women, afrodescendants and indigenous people as a contribution to peace correspond to the work carried out within their gender roles, also linked to their body. Others refer to their political participation in the struggles for their own territory and culture, in the elaboration of public agendas and in the demand to resolve the internal armed conflict through negotiation.

EL CUERPO PRIMER TERRITORIO DE PAZ

One of the main advancements of Planeta Paz is the possibility of elaborating and working with a common agenda among the different social sectors and a crucial concept identified in this process is that of the body as the first territory of peace. In this context, women’s body acquires a special centrality in several ways: it is a starting point, it’s a structure that requires consciousness and moves into existence, and it’s an instrument of relation to others. Violence against women has been protected by its normalization during the internal conflict, especially because the practices of conquest of those bodies, especially sexual violence, have been used as a weapon of war to achieve specific objectives within the conflict’s dynamics (gain informations, silence, punish, displace). These processes highlight the link between body, territory and conflict: women are both victims of the general violence caused by the conflict and of specific types of violence linked to their bodies.

This link has been highlighted with an interesting instrument called the “mapas del cuerpo”. This method allows the visual and graphic expression of the relationship between the subject and the context. It’s a way for women to recover from the traumas through the reappropriation of their bodies and the recognition of them as their own. Moreover, the mapas are an instrument of liberation from the violence of the conflict and the militarization of society and territories.

Throughout the conflict, women have embodied experiences that later have been articulated as collective. Therefore, for the leaders of the women’s movements, the female body is where individual and collective work around peace must begin. These are the reasons why the body is such an important part of an organization such as Planeta Paz that works to rebuild the peace networks in Colombia: it’s a privileged viewpoint from which to observe the social, political and economic reality of the country’s regions.

POLITICAL PARTICIPATION

The second line of action that has been particularly central for Planeta Paz concerns the political participation of women. This has become relevant because women are more and more widening the discursive mould and practices of politics, so that it contains other visions of the world, of society and of life in their own ways and with their languages. In the processes of popular and political consultations activated by Planeta Paz and not only, women’s collectives have thematized different paths of action to achieve greater political space to legitimise themselves as social actors and to bring issues of their interest in the public agendas.

In the Foro Nacional called by Planeta Paz in 2011, the leaders of women’s movements have manifested the wish to focus on political participation as it is a crucial factor for their empowerment as actors present in the peace processes and reconstruction in Colombia. According to them, a collective of women in politics can change the political framework.

The inclusion of the sector

The creation and the inclusion of women’s social sector in the project of Planeta Paz has been guided by the peculiar experiences that women had to endure during the conflict. During the 90s, with the resurgence of the war, several women’s organisations have converged around the discussions about the internal armed conflict in the sense of demanding a solution that would really solve the structural problems that are recognized as causal. Their commitment was to continue in a process for peace, working in the conjuncture. This was also the period in which several initiatives emerged in search of solutions to the armed conflict such as Mujeres colombianas por la Paz, Si Mujer, that have continued working to enhance the visibility and impact of women as political actors. Planeta Paz constitutes the place that unites these associations and helps with the visibilization and unification of their requests and claims.

This inclusion is relevant also because women have been excluded in the major peace processes made throughout the conflict. For instance, in the 9 accords signed in 1990 there is no mention of women that were part of guerrilla groups, and it appears that no women took part in the elaboration of the accords. Only one woman from the M19 participated and was in mediation with the military: Adriana Velasquez. If there were any women in the drafting of the peace agreements, their presence was not recognized by the State and by the other negotiating party, to the same extent as the presence of the men.

There has been, then, a cancellation of women both as victims and as participants in the armed groups. Another combatant of the M19, María Eugenia Vásquez, highlights the contributions of women ex-combatants in the construction of peace as a commitment to social justice and democracy, without ignoring the persistence of the structural causes that have led to the confrontation. Women ex-combatants have had the capacity to renounce weapons without renouncing their ideals and, therefore, they have made every effort to achieve the transformations through dialogue in democratic and participative spaces, such as Planeta Paz.

It is only in the Women’s Movement that the voices of so many women that have participated in the historical processes linked to the conflict and the contributions that were made in the frustrated peace process resound. Planeta Paz seeks to unite their voices with those of the other social sectors involved in their organisation, hoping to rebuild the Colombian social network through participation in the common work for this purpose.