I slipped past a huge police barricade and into the protest, immediately faced with a wall of smoke. Too early for that, surely - less than an hour into the protest? Braced, I held my sleeve over my face, already too late. ​

Hundreds gathered at a Medellin art festival on Monday to demonstrate against the spiralling violence and impunity that plague Colombia’s second largest city

An expert commission has given the go-ahead for fracking pilot projects in Colombia, despite President Ivan Duque’s promise not to use the controversial method and questions about the legitimacy of the panel’s methods

This article was first published by Colombia Reports - available here. 

Women´s football in Colombia is plagued by abuses of power, from bullying and blackmail, to harassment and sexual assault of underage girls, according to The League Against Silence.

Some players have pressed criminal charges, while others are joining the wave of voices coming together to denounce entrenched corruption and abuse in the system, the investigative journalism unit of the Foundation for the Freedom of Press reported.

This article was first published by Colombia Reports - available here. 

More than half of Colombia has no access to local news, it has been revealed. 578 of 994 municipalities mapped by press freedom foundation FLIP are “silent zones” where no news outlets produces or provides local information.

This article was originally published by the Hay Festival - available here.

Doris Salcedo, Colombian sculptor and visual artist, spoke to a buzzing theatre on Friday in Cartagena, interviewed by writer and editor Juan David Correa. Salcedo’s work has been exhibited all over the world, but is heavily-rooted in the politics and history of her country, and her experience as a Colombian.

The Mohajer App was awarded a special jury prize at the Techfugees Summit: read TechCrunch's report - here. 

This week I had the great privilege and challenge of working with content and messaging in a new context: presenting the Mohajer App at the Techfugees Summit in Paris as part of the 'Global Challenges' competition. I worked with the team to create a presentation, which I then delivered to the panel of judges. Mohajer is the app for Afghan refugees and migrants in Iran: the amazing team of Iranians and Afghans behind this project were not able to present the Project, for security and travel reasons. 

I’ve been linked to this Project since its beginnings, when I was working in the Calais camp, and I and one of the team started discussions and formal scoping with Afghan and Iranian refugees about information and empowerment. The Calais camp was demolished shortly afterwards, but the idea was adapted and and applied to a new context. 

This article was originally published on the website of the Hay Festival - here. 

“We are here to unite and announce our rejection of the separation of countries - and of hearts,” said Shirin Ebadi – encouraging us not to fear walls, but to fight them, knowing that they result in islamophobia, homophobia, and ultimately the fear of others.

“Think about the Berlin Wall. It was destroyed in less than 24 hours. This is the fate of any wall they create to separate people.”

Ebadi drew parallels between Iran, Europe and Mexico: across the world, families are being forcefully separated by borders, women are subject to violence and fear: more than a third of women will experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, often from a male partner. “The people of the world have so much in common – it is us who need to find a solution for our problems.”

This article was originally published on the website of the Hay Festival - here. 

“Some of this work has revealed entire infrastructures of corruption – bringing to light information which some people wanted to remain in the dark. This work strengthens democracy,” said Roldán.

Between 2013 and 2017, the government spent 38 billion MSP (roughly 53.7 million USD) on ‘official advertising’ - buying space in the media to distribute information to citizens. This opaque and discretionary allocation of funds to the media has historically proven to be a way of controlling editorial lines. “There is a difference in what we are doing: we are not transmitting messages from politicians, we are doing a slower form of journalism – finding out who is really governing us and how they are doing it,” said Roldán

This article was originally published on the website of the Hay Festival - here. 

#MeToo altered the global conversation on harassment and sexual assault: but its impact is still unclear. In the first of two panels on the topic during the festival, author Lydia Cacho, writer Wenceslao Bruciaga, and illustrator Maria Hesse - in discussion with Gabriela Jauregui - sat down yesterday evening (5 September) to discuss what it means for the Spanish-speaking world, from Mexico to Spain, and where that momentum might take us next.

The wave of revelations, which began nearly a year ago, changed our perception of what constitutes normality, said Maria Hesse: “Things we took to be just a part of daily life, but now many men have started to question themselves.” “It has brought on a crisis of heterosexuality,” Bruciaga said.

Women have been emboldened worldwide by the revelations of common experience, and the momentum needs to be maintained and supported; as Cacho explained: “Before, women didn’t dare speak - now they can because others dare to: those of us with access to the public narrative should support and help them.”

Though the scale of visibility is unprecedented, the facts are nothing new: the difference is who is speaking – actresses and famous women, accusing powerful men. These are allegations which have been made by campaigners, campesina activists, and Latina women both in Mexico across the border: “For Mexico, #MeToo was simply reliving what we have already known for many years.”

These issues have finally been put on the table and the solidarity is invaluable, but the debate must be relocated to focus on those without privilege: undocumented, oppressed, and vulnerable women. Genuine and meaningful solidarity is already being seen, says Cacho, and change is happening at all levels – “there has been a forceful echo throughout the world.”

Social media has been key in spreading the message, but can be a double-edged sword, said Bruciaga: it isn’t necessarily the answer, and often enables the spread of abuse. Cacho added that it is simply another tool of communication which reflects the societies and individuals who use them: “They reflect that we are violent societies.”
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The panelists concluded that hope lies in pursuing justice through criminal prosecution, as well as a holistic education: “We all need to listen and learn,” said Hesse.

This article was originally published on the website of the Hay Festival - here. 

“Men are not born men, they are turned into men,” said the author and journalist, referring to the socialisation of young boys, often characterised by cruelty and repression. She rejected gender essentialism, on the grounds that science has disproven ideas of inbuilt masculinity: “There is no machista chip in the brain.”

Cacho spoke about the toxic effects of this socialisation for how men relate to women, as well as other men: “Men are afraid of other men, particularly in Mexico.” She criticised the excuses given to men for misogyny and aggression, like loss of control or being a ‘man of one’s time’: “It often just means they are supermachista.”

#EllosHablan is Cacho’s 14th book: a collection of detailed interviews with men from a variety of social, religious, and ideological backgrounds. These men anonymously shared their experiences of maleness and manhood, from childhood onwards: when they were first told they were male, when they became ‘boys’, what that meant to them – and what it means for them now.

Cacho explained how she had decided to remove herself from the narrative as interviewer, leaving only the voices of her interviewees. This was key in a context where they have felt unable to speak, silenced by the expectation that men do not articulate suffering or vulnerability: “Machismo closes its doors to those to open up,” she said.

When asked by Lafuente whether she was optimistic, the author described the often-moving emotional development she saw in her interviewees: “The hope lies in men talking more.”

Only one month ago, the UN Human Rights Committee ruled that Cacho’s own human rights had been violated by the Mexican State in 2003 when she suffered arbitrary detention, torture, and gender-based violence following the publication of her book, ‘Demons of Eden’, an exposé of child exploitation in the state of Quintana Roo.
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“This book constitutes a question: how will we do it? How will we overcome this power?”

​Colombian regulators have taken a firm approach to data misuse in the face of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, impending elections, and politicians accused of corruption and cartel links.  
 
Last week, an app was blocked after revelations of collaboration with Cambridge Analytica (CA): Colombia’s commerce regulator blocked Pig.gi, its website, and its social media pages. The regulator announced that the app would be unavailable until investigations are concluded, as a “preventative measure, given the potential risk of a wrongful and massive illegal use of the personal data of thousands of Colombians.”
 
In the wake of the CA data scandal and claims of influencing elections worldwide, the stakes are high in Colombia: presidential elections are next month. Colombia is still listed on CA’s website as a location for work on “electoral strategy”.
 
Yohir Akerman, columnist at El Espectador, reported that three sources spoke to him of a relationship between CA and former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez, who is backing presidential hopeful Iván Duque. Uribe’s career has been spotted with allegations of corruption and alleged links to groups including the Medellin Cartel and Pablo Escobar himself. Uribe denounced the accusations as “slander”.

Emily HH
Founder, Writer, Editor at Writing Rights

Yesterday, I went to Downing Street, fake blood smeared on my face, to protest period poverty. Silence, squeamishness, and dismissal of issues which relate to menstruation create real consequences for Britain's women and girls.  

The protest called on Theresa May to provide free sanitary products to girls in schools who are already on free school meals.

This article originally appeared on the International Development Journal

​“In an increasingly connected world, women are being left behind,’ says the State of Broadband Report, and the digital gender divide not only far too wide, but is actually widening, from 11% fewer women online than men in 2012 to 12% in 2015. It is a disparity more pronounced in low and lower-middle income countries.

Writing Rights was born of a sense that something was missing in a sector I care passionately about.

My years of work in the human rights sector, for groups and campaigns on themes from education to whistleblowing, one thing struck me - over and over again.
 
Despite huge expertise, amazing research, and brilliant potential, there are huge barriers to storytelling in the campaigns and human rights sectors. Great messages sometimes just don’t hit the mark.
 
This was the gap I wanted to bridge– between expertise and a general audience, particularly lawyers and development researchers, and their intended readers. Complex policy, commentary, or information needs to be digested and re-packaged in order to have the maximum impact on those it wants to reach.
 
With the combination of a law degree, journalistic training with the Press Association, and extensive experience in the sector, I knew I was perfectly-placed to be this bridge.
 
I know the context well, and can deal with the challenges that the sector presents to research and drafting. I have an understanding of the complex relationship between experts, communications teams, and audiences, as well as experience in writing and editing.

From a simple proof through to a complete restructure, or working with specific briefs to create press releases and other promotional materials from long-form documents, the challenges and solutions vary hugely, but I’m learning and adapting all the time, and Writing Rights is growing with me.  

And a full year after I created the company, I’m still loving what I do, and loving my niche. I’ve written explainers, op-eds and digests for amazing campaign groups, copyedited long-form research and policy, and done proofreading work for those who need it. 

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