The U.S. Institute of Peace convened a panel discussion on the significant peacebuilding work underway by women in Colombia. This event featured a screening of the film, “The War We Are Living.”

As the Colombian government and the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) prepared to resume peace talks in Havana over the coming weeks, the U.S. Institute of Peace hosted a panel discussion on women, war, and peacebuilding in Colombia. Despite U.N. resolutions and guidance on women, peace, and security, women have been noticeably absent from Colombia’s peace tables. Their presence in other spheres of peacebuilding has been similarly marginalized, but is significant nonetheless.

The U.S. Institute of Peace, in collaboration with THIRTEEN and Fork Films, hosted a screening of the Women, War, and Peace Series film, “The War We Are Living,” by producer Oriana Zill. The documentary film traces the lives of two rural Afro-Colombian women as they lead their community’s struggle to resist forced displacement by a mining company and remain on their gold-rich lands in the southwestern Cauca region of Colombia. An expert panel following the film discussed the gender dimensions of the conflict and women’s roles in peacebuilding in Colombia.

 

Speakers

  • Kathleen Kuehnast, ModeratorDirector
    Center for Gender & Peacebuilding, U.S. Institute of Peace
  • Oriana Zill, Producer
    CBS News and The War We Are Living
  • Lorena Morales Vidal, Coordinator
    Legal Aid Program, Asociación Colectivo Mujeres al Derecho
  • Virginia M. Bouvier
    Senior Program Officer for Latin America, U.S. Institute of Peace

 

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