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Women Built This City

Colombia's City of Women: a safe haven from civil war & sexual violence

Five decades of fighting between the Colombian army, rebels from FARC and right-wing paramilitaries have left thousands dead and more than seven million people displaced. Half of them are women, who survived rape or saw family members killed. After fleeing their homes, many struggle to start over. 

Women, children, and the elderly are affected the most by the forced displacement. Half of Colombia's seven million internally displaced are women, according to the founder of the League of the Displaced Women, Patricia Guerrera.

Some of them have united to build the City of Women, a community of hundreds of homes built by and for female victims of war. Although they hoped for a new home and a haven from violence as the country was promised peace after signing a historic deal with the leading rebel group, FARC, they still don’t feel safe.

La Ciudad de las Mujeres, or the City of Women, is a small community of some hundred houses near Cartagena. Women forcibly displaced from their homes in rural areas used their own skills to build the ‘city’ from scratch.

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