Eight women were killed between February and April this year alone
BY BETHIA WYBORN, IMAGE BY GETTY
The Guardian has recently released an article stating that more than 40 trans women in Colombia were “targeted” and killed last year by “armed groups”.
The article, written by Natalia Torres Garzón, discusses how violence against LGBTQIA individuals has been on the rise in Colombia.
Eight trans women were killed between February and April this year, while 41 were killed in 2023.
The article follows three trans women in Caquetá, Colombia who face extreme adversity due to their identity.
One of the women details how three armed men broke into her home and threatened her with murder if she didn’t leave town.
Another woman says she tries not to leave the house and lives in fear that someone might recognise her. She said: “We, as trans women, are always looked at. But now, when someone looks at me on the street, I think it is because they have identified me or want to harm me.”
Trans activists in the report say that the government does little to protect them despite the rise in threats, violence and killings.
Aurora Iglesias, an LGBTQIA activist in Caquetá, told The Guardian: “The prosecutor’s office doesn’t even recognise a trans-femicide. They record all the cases as homicides, not even femicides, because the issue of gender is not important to them.”
“I’m not a prosecutor or a lawyer, but we are killed for what we are, not for being beautiful women passing by. We are being killed because the weight of a visible identity has a price. The truth is that every time we leave our houses, we don’t know if we’ll come back.”
Colombia has one of the strongest legal frameworks in Latin America defending the rights of LGBTQIA people; however, in practice, these protections are rarely enforced.
In 2019, a study found that, out of nine countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, Colombia registered the highest number of killings of LGBTQIA people over a five-year period.
Support for trans women in Colombia:
“Santamaría Fundación was founded in 2005 by four trans women who had witnessed the death of one of their friends as a result of lack of access to health services. Today, Santamaría Fundación has ten years of experience in fostering the leadership of transgender people in Cali, the fourth largest city in Colombia and one with one of the highest levels of transphobic hate crimes.”
For more information on Santamaría Fundación: astraeafoundation.org/stories/santamaria-fundacion/
Donate here: sfcolombia.org/
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