KAIROS very much appreciates this opportunity to appear as a witness. KAIROS and its member churches have a long history of working with partners in Colombia and Guatemala on issues of women's peace and security, indigenous rights, and ecological justice. You can imagine how difficult it's going to be for me to contain my remarks within eight minutes, but I'll do my best, and I hope this is the beginning of an ongoing dialogue.
We're encouraged by the committee's decision to host this consultation and by its plans to travel to Colombia and Guatemala at the end of the summer.
We look forward to continuing to work with you as you plan your delegation.
In April, my colleague Ian Thomson spoke to you about KAIROS' work, including our Women of Courage program. At that time he put forward some recommendations on women, peace, and security. In fact, our partners in Colombia are an integral part of our women, peace and security program. I hope to build on KAIROS' previous submission by speaking specifically about our partnerships in Guatemala and Colombia and what recommendations we can draw from this experience.
As Latin American partnerships coordinator and gender justice program coordinator at KAIROS, I've had the privilege of working with civil society organizations in Colombia, particularly women's organizations, over the last 15 years.
Today I want to focus on one partner, La Organización Femenina Popular, the popular feminist organization, which is a grassroots women's organization that has worked for 44 years in the region of Magdalena Medio. I do this because the OFP represents the tenacity, the creativity, the resilience, and the determination of many civil society groups in Colombia, characteristics that have allowed it not only to survive, but to thrive despite the conflict and the constant threats to its work and to the lives of its members.
OFP works at a local level through women's centres, providing training, legal accompaniment, and even affordable food at community kitchens. At the same time, it plays a key role in networks for peace and human rights at a national level. While its strategies and programs have changed in response to the context of the conflict, it remains a reference point for work in human rights and peace. For example, in the 1990s at the height of paramilitary control in Barrancabermeja, when it was extremely dangerous—deadly, in fact—to be a human rights defender, the OFP led and held together a human rights network at a local level, while simultaneously mobilizing tens of thousands of women in the most conflict-ridden areas in Colombia and providing accompaniment to these women in these conflict areas.
In 2012 the OFP held regional women's courts for justice, peace, and territory and gathered hundreds of testimonies from women who had experienced human rights violations as a result of the conflict. In the context of impunity, these ethical or symbolic courts were an important space for women to denounce human rights violations and to expose the truth. Legal action demanding reparation was initiated in a number of the cases presented during these women's courts.
The visibility of the crimes also strengthened the advocacy efforts of the women's movement, as well as its demands for truth, justice, and reparation within the current peace process. In the last few years, the OFP has engaged in a process to secure collective reparations from the Colombian state under law 1448 on the rights of victims to reparation.
The OFP's 44 years of work with victims and survivors, as well as its crippling institutional losses, including the assassination of a number of its leaders, makes this case for collective reparations emblematic in Colombia. It has documented this experience in a number of documents and those are being used as a model. As well, throughout the reparation program, the OFP has made concrete advances and real change in the lives of thousands of women.
In the OFP we see the resilience of civil society in Colombia, its ability to respond to the given national and local context to create spaces and proposals for peace, and to reach the most vulnerable populations with really concrete programs. In fact, at KAIROS, our gender-justice work has been inspired by the OFP. We have learned how militarized conflict impacts women; how women are victimized many times over through gender, inequality, poverty, and racism; and how sexual violence is used in the strategy of war. At same time, we have seen how women's groups are integral actors in defence of human rights and processes for peace, justice, and reparations.
The OFP has also demonstrated the importance of psychosocial and legal accompaniment that empowers women victims of human rights violations to heal and themselves become active in the peace process. This is in fact the basis of our women, peace, and security program that is currently under active review in the partnership branch at Global Affairs. The focus of this program very much aligns with the focus of this committee's work. Civil society organizations like the OFP represent Colombia's hope and strength and require ongoing and sustained support.
This brings me to two recommendations. One is that Canada's bilateral assistance must prioritize financial support for independent civil society groups in Colombia, particularly women's groups. It is important that these are long-term partnerships and that they inform development policy and priorities. Investing in civil society will guarantee resources to groups that have the capacity to influence and implement peace accords on the ground. Two, it is important that bilateral assistance adopt a human rights approach to development, including accompaniment of victims of human rights violations and providing human rights training. We have seen, as I mentioned, how women, often victims of violence themselves, can become protagonists in the peace process with appropriate psychosocial support and human rights training.
I would like to take the last few minutes to talk about our partnerships in Guatemala and how this experience informs additional recommendations for your review.
For 10 years now, KAIROS has worked with CEIBA, an organization that supports community development in indigenous communities in western Guatemala. CEIBA was founded in 1994 when Guatemalan refugees were returning to the region. It has accompanied these communities since then with responsive programming in community development and human rights. CEIBA has delivered programs in community health, food sovereignty, environmental and land protection, leadership development, and human rights training.
Some of the communities accompanied by CEIBA are responding to resource extraction projects, the majority of which involve Canadian companies. In a number of cases, communities have raised concern that these projects threaten the very community development and human rights that are being supported by this partnership, particularly indigenous rights. When they raise these concerns, when they protest and demand that their rights be respected, they face criminalization, threats, and sometimes death. In Guatemala, as in Colombia, we have seen an increase in threats and assassinations of indigenous and environmental rights defenders. Leaders in CEIBA, as well as in the communities they accompany, have been targeted.
Based on this experience and the conflict in Guatemala, I would like to add the following recommendations. Canadian development policy and practice must be informed by indigenous rights, including FPIC, free, prior, and informed consent, as outlined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Furthermore, the Government of Canada must establish a mechanism to hold Canadian resource extraction companies accountable, so that the investment and resource extraction policy does not undermine the very development initiatives we are trying to support. To this end, we call on the Canadian government to establish an independent ombudsman on resource extraction and legislation that holds Canadian companies accountable.
To summarize then, Colombia and Guatemala must be a focus. More importantly than this, within this focus, Canadian development assistance must support independent civil society groups in long-term partnerships. By doing so, we are investing in resilient, effective programming that reaches the most vulnerable. Human rights are key. Development assistance needs to be underpinned by Canada's commitments to human rights, including the rights of indigenous people and to all women. Finally, Canadian development assistance needs to be responsive and informed by long-term partnerships with civil society organizations in Canada, in Colombia, and in Guatemala. Our partners tell us that as important as financial support is the capacity of the Canadian government to amplify their voices in their demands for peace and human rights.
Finally, and as I mentioned earlier, KAIROS has submitted an unsolicited proposal to the partnership branch at Global Affairs. While we are still awaiting a response, we remain hopeful that the work of KAIROS and our partners will complement and ensure the success of Canada's international development assistance in Colombia and in other countries of concern.
KAIROS very much appreciates being included in this consultation, and we look forward to being a part of the ongoing dialogue as you prepare your itinerary in Colombia and Guatemala, and in the policy discussions that follow.
Thank you.