Japan, UN Women, Agua Pura para el Mundo (Pure Water for the World), and the Fundación Alivio para el Sugrimiento (Relief of Suffering Foundation) have inaugurated the Journeys (Trayectos) programme in Honduras. The programme aims to guarantee the rights of women in mobility during their transit through Central America. Funded by the Government of Japan and implemented in Costa Rica, Honduras, and Panama, Journeys seeks to close critical gaps in women's leadership and ensure their equitable access to protection amidst unprecedented human displacement in the region.

A significant gathering in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, brought together Caribbean leaders and key stakeholders to ensure women play a central role in responding to regional common challenges. The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Caribbean National Action Plan Convening, co-hosted by Our Secure Future and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), took place from May 13th to 15th, 2024.

Thousands of women in Colombia seek the truth about what happened to their loved ones who disappeared during the internal conflict. And there are many others who, driven by making their leadership an opportunity to help their communities are increasingly consolidating peace in their territories.

Approximately 50 Colombian and Guatemalan women met virtually to exchange their experiences on the importance of peace building from the centrality of women's human rights.

Rosalina Tuyuc Velásquez, a Guatemalan human rights activist, has never given up looking for truth and justice, since her father and husband were disappeared during the Guatemalan civil war. After her father and husband were kidnapped and murdered by government forces during the Guatemalan civil war, she founded the National Association of Guatemalan Widows (CONAVIGUA). It is now a leading national human rights organisation. In 1995, she was elected as a Congressional deputy, and in 2004 she chaired the National Reparations Commission to investigate crimes committed during the civil war, which raged for over three decades.

UN Women stands with all the women, including young women, around the world upholding peace: from the mothers holding vigil for the disappeared, to the women marching against police brutality; from the women in refugee camps navigating a complex gender landscape, to those negotiating ceasefires all over the world.

Cecilia Alemany, Deputy Director of the Regional Office of UN Women for the Americas, highlighted the difficulties that women face during the pandemic in accessing justice and reaffirmed the commitment of UN Women to strengthen regional capacities in this area, during a meeting of the Specialized Network on Gender (REG) of the Ibero-American Association of Public Ministries (AIAMP), on September 17th.

On 13 August, UN Women held a webinar on the key gender issues to be taken into account during the planning of the  Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan   (RMRP) 2021 of the  Regional Interagency Coordination Platform  for the response to the mixed flows of people from Venezuela (R4V). 

For life, development, and peace, I'm an advocate. This is one of the many messages that they share with us and which will be insisted on by the leaders and human rights defenders who were selected to be part of the ProDefensoras Colombia Programme, which has been made possible thanks to the alliance between UN Women, the Norwegian Embassy and the Ombudsman's Office.

On the margins of the annual UN Security Council Open Debate on Women, Peace and Security in New York, at a side event on 30 October, survivors, leaders and experts came together to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the mandate of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict.

Sonia Maribel Sontay Herrera is an indigenous woman and human rights defender from Guatemala. Her vision is for Guatemala to respect the rights of indigenous women and hear their voices.

UN Women spoke with Jean Arnault, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia, about gender parity within the Mission and its priorities over the next year. The Verification Mission in Colombia has made impressive strides towards gender parity; 58 per cent of its professional level field staff are women and 65 per cent of field office teams are led by women. The Final Peace Agreement between the Colombian Government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP) was signed in 2016, ending more than 50 years of conflict. Contrary to most peace negotiations in history, women had a significant influence in the peace process in Colombia. The resulting peace agreement addresses core issues that impact women, such as women’s representation in decision-making bodies, access to land restitution or justice and reparations for survivors of conflict-related sexual violence.

During the 36-year-long Guatemalan civil war, indigenous women were systematically raped and enslaved by the military in a small community near the Sepur Zarco outpost. What happened to them then was not unique, but what happened next, changed history. From 2011 – 2016, 15 women survivors fought for justice at the highest court of Guatemala. The groundbreaking case resulted in the conviction of two former military officers of crimes against humanity and granted 18 reparation measures to the women survivors and their community. The abuelas of Sepur Zarco, as the women are respectfully referred to, are now waiting to experience justice. Justice, for them, includes education for the children of their community, access to land, a health care clinic and such measures that will end the abject poverty their community has endured across generations. Justice must be lived.

Mila Rodriguez is one of the young members of Colombia’s Cantadora Network, a network of singers using traditional Afro-Colombian music to preserve their culture and promote peace. Supported by a UN Women programme, the Cantadoras have engaged young people in the port city of Tumaco, where decades of armed conflict have torn apart communities, and peace is still a long journey.

Deyanira Cordoba belongs to a family of coffee growers of Tablon de Gomez, in the of Nariño region of Colombia. As part of a UN Women project, she has learned about her economic rights, bodily autonomy and more. The future holds many possibilities for this talented artist and coffee grower, but whichever path she chooses, she feels she belongs with her community, in the mountains of Colombia, watching the coffee grow.

Thelma Aldana is the Public Prosecutor and Head of the Public Ministry of Guatemala, who will complete her term in May 2018. She is known as a champion of women’s rights, UN Security Council Resolution 1325, and the force behind the creation of specialized courts for femicide and violence against women cases in 2010. Today, there are 12 of these specialized courts in Guatemala. UN Women has supported the Public Ministry in adopting and implementing the Women and Men´s Equality...

Charo Mina-Rojas has worked for many years to educate grassroots Afro-descendant communities of Colombia on Law 70 of 1993, which recognizes their cultural, territorial and political rights. Following the historic peace agreement which ended the more than 50-year conflict between the Government of Colombia and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Mina-Rojas advocates for justice and equality for Colombia’s afro-descendent women.

Sepur Zarco was the first case of conflict-related sexual violence challenged under Guatemala’s penal code. It was also the first time that a national court anywhere in the world had ruled on charges of sexual slavery during an armed conflict—a crime under international law. In its path-breaking judgment, the Guatemalan court noted that sexual violence against indigenous Maya Q’eqchi’ women was part of a deliberate strategy by the Guatemalan Army.

Colombia’s half-a-century-long armed conflict has deeply wounded the country’s rural areas. Today, rural and indigenous women suffer the highest levels of poverty, social exclusion and discrimination. According to national statistics, 41.9 per cent of rural women-led households live in poverty and 9.6 per cent in extreme poverty. An initiative by UN Women has supported rural and indigenous women to develop leadership and business skills to boost their economic and political empowerment as the country strives for peace.

Magda Alberto is a young feminist and member of UN Women Civil Society Advisory Group in Colombia. She advocates for the recognition of women in the Colombian peace-process and was part of the Women and Peace Summit in 2013 and 2016, supported by the UN system and led by UN Women, which led to the formal recognition by the parties of women’s role in the Colombian peace process.