In 2015, she went a step further and held a workshop for the first time, hosting a group of friends in her living room in the Manuela Beltrán neighborhood and teaching them everything she had learned at a workshop about gender-based violence. Without the document, Landazury wouldn’t even be allowed to enter the building. At the door of the Public Ministry’s office, an official explained that she would need her husband’s death certificate to report his disappearance, even if there was no way for her to obtain one. Landazury, creator of the nonprofit Women’s Social Memory Foundation, at her office in Cali.Īs Landazury started her life again from scratch, she set out to get justice for her husband, but found out quickly how difficult receiving any type of support from the government would be. They arrived in Cali two days later, carrying only the clothes on their backs. Fearing for their lives, Landazury and her teenage son slipped out of the village, without warning anyone. If she made too much noise, she would be the next one to disappear. The military colluded with the armed groups, and when Landazury tried to find answers on her own, her neighbors and co-workers warned her against asking too many questions.
In the village, there were no police to call. On March 29, 2009, Landazury’s husband left his house for work at 7 a.m.
She believes his defiance cost him his life. But new paramilitary factions followed, with one such group imposing a “tax” on local businesses that Landazury’s husband frequently objected to.
There they lived under the rule of the United Self-Defense Forces, a far-right paramilitary group that eventually demobilized in 2006 after signing a pact with the government a few years earlier. When a peace deal finally ended the FARC’s armed rebellion in 2016, nearly 8 million people had been made internal refugees and more than 450,000 had been killed. This was exacerbated by the rise of drug trafficking and counterinsurgent armies in the following years. A 1964 uprising of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a group of Marxist farmers demanding the equal distribution of land and political power from the government, evolved into an all-out war. Not long ago, she was in their shoes, a survivor in need of guidance herself.Īs a result of the Colombian armed conflict, there are millions of survivors just like Landazury. The need is endless, but she wants to help them all. “They come to me because they hear that I’m someone who helps survivors and stands up for them,” Landazury said over a recent Zoom call. But many are strangers who’ve heard of Landazury’s reputation as a woman who will advocate on their behalf. Some of those seeking help are members of a support network for survivors Landazury founded in her neighborhood.
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