Feminist alert in response to the increase in gender-based violence
By: Mónica Tinjacá Amaya *
we feminists are calling for action. Every November 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, we come together to march, denounce, shout, and also embrace each other in the context of a society that wants to take away even our right to tenderness. We once again declare an alert for femicides and sexist violence. This call rises from the streets, neighborhoods, fields, and mountains; from the skies and territories where women who refuse to give up are resisting. Because there is no small fight when it comes to defending life.
And amid our voices, we do not forget the women and girls who are also victims of gender-based violence in Palestine, a product of Zionist aggression. Between June and August 2025, women in Gaza suffered the following types and proportions of gender-based violence: 3.7% forced marriages, 5.2% sexual assaults, 25.8% physical assaults, 29.8% emotional and psychological abuse, and 35.5% suffered from denial of resources, opportunities, or services. Much of the violence was attributed to family members, intimate partners, and armed groups, among others (Source: UNFPA). Nor do we forget the women and girls who suffer in Haiti, or the oppressed women of the world who face hunger, war, and occupation. Feminist solidarity is also internationalist: what hurts one body hurts us all, and as long as one woman is abused, no woman will be completely free.
Today we demand that the High Presidential Council for Women's Equality, the Ministry of Equality and Equity, the Ministry of Justice and Law, the Attorney General's Office, the National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences, the National Police, the Ombudsman's Office, the Attorney General's Office, the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare (ICBF), the territorial entities, the Family Commissariats, the Judicial Branch, the Constitutional Court, and the Supreme Court of Justice to assume their cross-cutting and binding obligation to the entire state apparatus, from prevention to punishment.
This feminist alert is not just a slogan, it is an act of memory and hope. It reminds us that violence against women is not a private problem, but a public and collective responsibility. It challenges us to change the ways in which we relate to each other, educate each other, love each other, and demand justice.
Because women do not want to survive: we want to live. We want to love without fear, walk without being watched, report without being blamed, exist without being questioned. And as long as the state does not guarantee these rights, the struggle will continue to be necessary.
From La Revoltosa, we repeat with conviction and rebellious tenderness: Up with those who fight, those who care, those who love ethically, those who heal with sisterhood, those who do not give up. Because, even if patriarchy insists, women will continue to raise our voices until life is dignified for all.
In Colombia, women's right to live free from violence is recognized in the 1991 Constitution, Law 1257 of 2008, and international treaties signed by the state. The 2022-2026 National Development Plan recognized and declared a state of emergency due to gender-based violence in Colombia, but the figures show that these guarantees remain a dead letter. According to the most recent report published by the World Health Organization (WHO) on the prevalence of violence against women, the global picture remains deeply alarming. The document states that one in three women worldwide has suffered assault by a partner or sexual violence committed by third parties. It is estimated that around 840 million women have experienced physical or sexual violence within their romantic relationships.
Cases of sexual harassment and violence not only constitute a direct violation of women's autonomy and freedom, but are also rendered invisible because underreporting persists. Sexual violence is not an isolated event: it is the result of patriarchal structures that normalize the objectification, coercion, and silencing of victims.
According to the Colombian Ministry of Justice's Bulletin on Domestic Violence, during the first half of 2025, there were 50,760 criminal proceedings for domestic violence.
According to the Colombian Observatory on Femicide of Popular Republicans, between January and September 2025, there were 621 femicides and 350 attempted femicides. These figures are not just numbers: they are names, bodies, lives taken away. They are evidence of a society that continues to normalize gender-based violence as part of everyday life, both in institutions and in intimate relationships. Behind each number there is an interrupted story, families demanding justice.
Gender-based violence is not limited to physical assault or femicide. As recognized by Law 1257, it takes many forms: psychological, sexual, economic, and patrimonial. Today, it also manifests itself in widespread everyday forms, including digital violence, the non-consensual dissemination of intimate images for blackmail purposes, and public shaming as symbolic punishment, practices that are fueled by impunity, the normalization of harassment, and the crisis of trust between people.
Emotional violence is part of the everyday landscape of relationships, where the common denominator is a lack of emotional responsibility. Although many insist on calling it simple freedom or "honesty," it is in fact a machinery of domination deeply rooted in our pedagogy of cruelty. Saying that you are not looking for anything serious while occupying the symbolic place of a partner, that intimate space where trust is woven and vulnerability is deposited, is not harmless: it is an exercise of power that places the other person in a state of emotional availability without offering reciprocity. And when, at the same time, a scattered, multiplied, almost performative flirtation is maintained, a patriarchal logic is reaffirmed where one's own desire is erected as the measure of all things and the desire of the other is relegated to an uncertain margin. This instability is not random: it is part of a way of relating that strips away, confuses, hurts, and reproduces, in the intimate sphere, the same asymmetries of patriarchy that sustain the broader forms of violence in our social life.
At the sociopolitical level, political violence is used to silence the voices of women leaders and human rights defenders as a form of intimidation and symbolic punishment. But it is also reproduced by some institutional bodies and the interpretation of regulations in a re-victimizing manner, without taking into account the gender perspective in some decisions. From a criminal and constitutional perspective, the Colombian State is jointly responsible for the persistence of gender-based violence when it fails to guarantee effective conditions for prevention, care, and punishment. The absence of sustained awareness campaigns, the lack of specialized training for prosecutors, police officers, forensic doctors, and judicial operators, and the structural overload of offices constitute service failures that directly impact women's access to justice. Every time a case goes unpunished, not only are the individual rights of the victim and their families violated, but the State also fails to comply with its obligation of due diligence established by the Inter-American Court and reiterated by Colombian criminal and constitutional jurisprudence. Violence against women is not a private matter: it is a public responsibility, and when the State fails in its duty to protect, prevent, investigate, and punish, it must also be held accountable.
*Mónica Tinjacá Amaya – feminist lawyer, member of the Colombian Committee for Solidarity with Palestine.