Women line up as voting takes place again in Bogotá.tiago Ramírez Baquero on June 19, 2022
Last July, the registration of candidates for the regional elections in Colombia was suspended. If it were a matter of numbers, one could speak of an increasingly stronger and more consolidated participation of women. Of the 132,553 registered people, 52,209 were women, or 39% of the total. But the numbers aren’t everything. The women who managed To had to overcome many hurdles to be included on the lists, and there are many more waiting for them as of October 29th. Not only do women receive less money and visibility from political parties, but they also face other violence designed to force them to leave politics. Not just her, but also other women who would like to hold decision-making positions one day.
The mix of violence and politics is nothing new in Colombia. We usually think that these are the costs that must be borne by those who decide to throw themselves into the ring. The moderation with which one responds to violence, which has now also shifted to the digital environment, is one of the qualities that those who decide to participate in politics must have. This belief is so deeply rooted that the women involved in a Karisma investigation into digital violence in the last congressional elections said it was a necessary evil. When the violence they face on social media becomes untenable, they take a few days of rest and then return to their campaign activities. Leaving social networks is not an option, unlike what is not possible for candidates with other visible women, such as journalists whose accounts are leaving in the face of violence.
The women stay and go about their lives alone, without the accompaniment of the political parties or movements that support them, or of the state authorities. Some of them have been trained in political marketing by international organizations, but in general they must be responsible for their social networks and design their own response protocols. In this work, the woman’s economic capacity comes into play: if she has many years of experience and has already held public office, she can hire someone to help her cope with the psychological impact of the attacks and the burden that weighs on her socially Networks. to decide which messages to answer and which battles to fight. The rest, generally those who have just entered political activity, have no help and do not know where to turn if they are exposed to violence.
Despite efforts to establish care protocols and reporting pathways, there is no clear picture of the specific actions women can take to report an assault. None of the women or their communications teams we spoke to knew who to contact. They do not know who is responsible for handling their gaming complaints or their complaints to the authorities if they feel threatened. They also don’t know the platforms’ tools for reporting problems.
This loneliness is deafening in a scenario where female politicians continually see their abilities questioned as a form of aggression, reinforcing that only men can hold public office. They are also alone in the face of threats to their integrity and that of their family, which are easily dismissed by the authorities because they occur on the Internet, or in the face of attempts to manipulate information, for example when they are accused of belonging to armed groups or intimate videos circulate , which they didn’t record. All of this ultimately aims to delegitimize them as possible representatives of the community. The catalog of attacks is extensive and always individual for each woman. Digital violence is tailored to cause the desired harm.
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Is there anything left to do in the remaining two months of the campaign? In addition to taking online violence seriously, political parties and movements are committed to making the women on their lists visible and providing resources to train them in digital security, as well as receiving support when they suffer violence Minimum. The promise of agencies such as the CNE and the Judicial Branch should be to use existing regulations to ensure comprehensive redress and a gender perspective in grievance procedures. Social media platforms need to develop different policies for these women’s attention and disseminate the results of those policies once the elections are over.
The road ahead is long and full of obstacles such as lack of political will and gender bias. Structural solutions are needed because violence caused by discrimination against women cannot be alleviated by eliminating certain publications or banning expression on the Internet. It remains to be hoped that the law to combat political violence examined by the Constitutional Court will help with implementation while at the same time protecting the rights to freedom of expression and privacy.
The Karisma Foundation’s work in developing digital security and privacy workshops for leaders, human rights defenders and politicians in the region has shown us ways to mitigate the risks of digital violence without implying that when violence occurs, this is because the victim did not take enough action. Trying to use different social networks for political life and social life is a good place to start. It also helps avoid sharing private information such as family photos or exact location. Another way to limit the negative impact of publications is to prepare the family not to answer questions about political life and to respond only to positive comments and not to provocations. Reporting abusive profiles on social networks and messaging services is possible. Finally, strong passwords, a double authentication system, and avoiding leaving data on public computers can also avoid problems.
Catalina Moreno Arocha She is the Social Inclusion Coordinator at Karisma Foundation, an organization that seeks to ensure that digital technologies protect and promote fundamental human rights and promote social justice. She is a lawyer and has worked at the Constitutional Court and as a consultant on gender issues.
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