[Witness spoke in Spanish, interpreted as follows:]
The situation is that female rights defenders, whether for social rights or environmental rights, are being threatened. They are being bullied. This does not make things easier, and furthermore there is so much impunity that it makes it difficult to do our work. There is a series of dangers that creates obstacles and demotivates women from doing these activities in favour of the environment and human rights.
On these threats, even threats against lives, what we see is essentially a lack of action by the state in respecting their rights, which need to be respected. The countries from which the mining companies come should also respect these. If there are minerals being used in a particular territory where they are not being produced, that means they are benefiting from the sacrifice of other territories and other people. On one hand, these states need to give us a guarantee. They need to ensure our safety so that we can defend our rights. As well, the laws that exist—for example, Canada's laws—need to be stricter on the compliance with human rights and ensure that companies that are operating in our territories will respect human rights and not carry out these violations due to their mining interventions, for example, by Canada, in our territory.
Thank you very much.