Defensoras de derechos humanos

The report analyzes the relationship between human rights NGOs and the law in Colombia, specifically regarding forced displacement between 2002 and 2012. It proposes a typology of legal mobilization: 'appropriation' (strategic use of legal resources), 'adaptation' (weaving existing goals into new legal frameworks), and 'resistance' (proposing alternative frameworks outside dominant legal norms). Through three case studies, it details how Colemad fought 'legal dispossession' of land in the Atlantic coast, how the CNMI integrated indigenous cosmovisions and 'spiritual violence' into national legislation, and how COCA shifted from standard workshops to ancestral healing practices in Putumayo to address the psychological trauma of war. The text also highlights systemic challenges for these organizations, including precarious international funding, the 'privatization of social work,' and persistent insecurity from armed actors.

• The authors identify three 'ideal types' of how NGOs relate to legal frameworks: appropriation, where legal opportunities are used strategically; adaptation, where NGOs weave their own goals into dominant frameworks to grow; and resistance, where NGOs propose non-dominant frameworks and often marginalize themselves from official resources.
• Colectivo Mujeres al Derecho (Colemad) focused on 'legal dispossession' (despojo legal) in the Atlantic coast, where the 1994 Agrarian Reform Law (Ley 160) was manipulated by officials and armed actors to force peasants into unpayable debts, allowing land to be auctioned off to private investors.
• Colemad successfully influenced the Victims and Land Restitution Law (Ley 1448 de 2011) by lobbying the women's caucus in Congress to include an article that condones agrarian debts for victims of the armed conflict.
• The Consejo Nacional de Mujeres Indígenas (CNMI) worked to integrate indigenous cosmovisions into law, successfully introducing the concept of 'spiritual violence' into Decree Law 4633 of 2011, which recognizes damage to sacred symbols as a means of cultural genocide.
• Corporación Casa Amazonía (COCA) critiqued the 'standard' NGO workshop model as insensitive and ineffective for traumatized populations in Putumayo, shifting instead toward 'healing workshops' that use ancestral medicine, yagé, and rituals to treat the psychological wounds of war.
• NGOs in Colombia often experience a 'privatization of social work,' where they fill gaps in state services (health, legal aid, education) using erratic international funding that frequently fails to provide labor security or pensions for the workers.
• Human rights defenders in Colombia face pervasive insecurity from multiple sources, including state security forces who suspect their political identities, illegal armed groups (paramilitaries and guerrillas) who view NGOs as threats to their social control, and interpersonal threats used to settle local disputes.

APA

Ripoll, J. L. (n.d.). Defensoras de derechos humanos. Peace Research Institute Oslo. https://cdn.cloud.prio.org/files/9bc2e7ad-5e52-4655-9bbc-1c82eb7e530d/Lemaitre et al 2014 Defensoras de Derchos Humanos JUSTICIA GLOBAL 9.pdf?inline=true

Chicago

Ripoll, Julieta Lemaitre. Defensoras de derechos humanos. Peace Research Institute Oslo, n.d. https://cdn.cloud.prio.org/files/9bc2e7ad-5e52-4655-9bbc-1c82eb7e530d/Lemaitre et al 2014 Defensoras de Derchos Humanos JUSTICIA GLOBAL 9.pdf?inline=true.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Ripoll |first1=Julieta Lemaitre |title=Defensoras de derechos humanos |publisher=Peace Research Institute Oslo |url=https://cdn.cloud.prio.org/files/9bc2e7ad-5e52-4655-9bbc-1c82eb7e530d/Lemaitre et al 2014 Defensoras de Derchos Humanos JUSTICIA GLOBAL 9.pdf?inline=true |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{ripollnddefensoras, author = {Ripoll, Julieta Lemaitre}, title = {{Defensoras de derechos humanos}}, institution = {Peace Research Institute Oslo}, url = {https://cdn.cloud.prio.org/files/9bc2e7ad-5e52-4655-9bbc-1c82eb7e530d/Lemaitre et al 2014 Defensoras de Derchos Humanos JUSTICIA GLOBAL 9.pdf?inline=true}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }