The International Institute on Race, Equality, and Human Rights (Race & Equality), within the framework of the project on racial justice funded by the Ford Foundation, held the first training workshop on international human rights mechanisms for the team from Fundación Arcoíris de Tumaco [Rainbow Foundation from Tumaco], the only organization working specifically on heightening the visibility and defending the rights of LGBTI Afro-descendants in Colombia.

The objective of the workshop was for Fundación Arcoíris de Tumaco to learn about the mechanisms that exist to protect human rights within the Inter-American System of Human Rights and the United Nations System.  The use of these mechanisms will be greatly relevant, given the context of extreme violence in this region of the country, wherein LGBTI Afro-Colombians experience differentiated impacts on their human rights as a result of aggravated forms of discrimination and violations.  The expected result of the project is a report produced by the organization regarding the state of this population group’s human rights that will be presented to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

The training included a dialogue of knowledge in which the participants described in detail the sociopolitical situation that characterizes the department, as well as the affects of those dynamics on the lives of LGBTI Afro-descendants.  In recent years, Tumaco has been one of the principal municipalities impacted by various types of violence; as such, the impacts on LGBTI persons have particularities, resulting in most cases from stigmas that produce several types of discrimination, in addition to violating their most fundamental rights.

Race & Equality will continue the process of providing technical assistance to the Afro-Colombian Fundación Arcoíris de Tumaco so that it can continue to strengthen its advocacy capacity to defend the rights of members of its community.