For decades, María Amparo Carvajal in Bolivia and Juana Ruiz in Colombia have dedicated their lives to protecting and defending survivors of human rights violations. His efforts were recognized this Tuesday by the United States Department of State with the Human Rights Defender Award.
Carvajal was born in Spain and moved to Bolivia in 1971, the same year that Hugo Bánzer came to power in that country through a coup d’état. Bánzer was president until 1978 and during those years, he avoided prosecution for human rights violations, which in part motivated the woman’s work.
In 1976, Carvajal founded the Permanent Assembly of Human Rights of Bolivia (APDHB), of which she remains president and which with the help of volunteers sought to monitor and defend human rights under that dictatorship.
“It seems to me that I have not done anything special, just comply… as a murdered friend told me… Keeping quiet is the same as lying, you have to shout the truth, which is sought and found,” Carvajal told the Voice of America.
APDHB continues to provide pro bono support and services to victims and survivors of human rights violations and their families.
Despite his 85 years of age and his fight against cancer, in June 2023, Carvajal spent 51 days vigil in front of the APDHB building in protest after it was raided and occupied.
“We all have the right to search, to find a place… I did not come for money, I came to work for education, health, justice. I would like to shout, to demand everyone’s right to live in harmony, in coordination, respecting each other,” Carvajal added.
Sitting in a wheelchair, María Amparo repeated over and over again that the search for freedom was part of her motivation, to leave young people an example of the activism that she would like to continue after her.
“Carvajal has been fighting for human rights in Bolivia for more than half a century. Over the decades, he has taken on countless causes, from individual cases of tortured and missing people to defending the rights of indigenous communities,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at the awards ceremony.
Blinken acknowledged María Amparo’s tenacity in resisting the raid on her organization’s office by sleeping outdoors amid low temperatures.
“When the occupiers finally agreed to abandon their organization, Amparo said, and I quote: ‘I felt strengthened because I never sold out’… which can be said about her entire life,” the official added.
A fight for women in Colombia
Juana Ruiz is an Afro-Colombian woman artist, teacher, social leader and director of the Asociación Para La Vida Digna Y Solidaria (ASVIDAS). This organization seeks to defend survivors of gender violence in Colombia.
Ruiz is a victim of the armed conflict in Colombia. In March 2000 during one of the most critical points of the armed violence in the country, Their community located in the Montes de María region, a mountain range in northern Colombia, was entirely displaced.
“The paramilitaries in this town took out all the people, but they also sexually abused some women,” Ruiz told the VOA. This triggered his fight for human rights. “We took on the job without intending to and without having that title,” he said..
In 2005, when some paramilitaries began to hand over their weapons, Ruiz and her organization understood that “as the conflict disproportionately affects women” it was necessary “to heal our wounds to remember without pain, without anger, without desire for revenge, to reconcile, but also to demand reparation from the state.” This, he says, they achieved through art.
A North American woman taught the members of ASVIDAS patchwork art, and since then, they have turned clothing and other fabrics into canvases in which they portray the reality of the conflict, and which are today presented in museums in different parts of the country.
“Juana Alicia Ruiz joined other women in the community to create a project to help survivors recount their abuse and process their trauma through patchwork. Juana’s defense eventually led a Colombian judge to demand the government build a museum to educate the public about the massacre and promote reconciliation,” Blinken said while awarding the award.
Both women are part of a group of eight people honored in a ceremony at the State Department, led by Secretary Blinken. The others were citizens of Azerbaijan, Burma, Eswatini, Ghana, Kuwait and the Kyrgyz Republic.
“Together, they are united in their personal courage, drive and resilience to defend human rights and fundamental freedoms. While we celebrate their contributions, we also recognize the significant hardships and dangers that they and often their families, friends, and communities face due to retaliation against their work, threats, harassment, unjust imprisonment, torture, and even death,” Uzra Zeya, Undersecretary of Civil Security, Democracy and Human Rights, noted during the ceremony.
This recognition occurs within the framework of International Human Rights Day. December 10 marks the anniversary of the day when, in 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
“Let us use today to celebrate strong civil societies and the tenacity and persistence of those who continue to hold out hope for a better future,” said Dafna Rand, assistant secretary of the State Department’s office of democracy, human rights and labor.
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