Collective Protection for Communities and Rights Defenders at Risk: Lessons from Grassroots Advocacy in Colombia
Date: June 2024
Author(s): Mauricio Parra Bayona, Elizabeth Moreno Barco, and Jonathan Fox
Publication type: ARC Accountability Note
Published by: Accountability Research Center
Rights defenders around the world face unrelenting violent reprisals for their work protecting marginalized communities and their territories.
Some governments respond by committing to protect these citizens at risk—mainly with individualized, police-style safeguards. Colombia’s government has Latin America’s largest protection agency by far and has gone beyond its many individual measures to also promise collective protection to communities at risk.
In Colombia, the Community Council of the San Juan River region (ACADESAN), defends the rights of its 72 Afro-Colombian communities in areas affected by armed conflict. It has worked to hold the government accountable for delivering on its legal and policy commitments to protect communities at risk by providing comprehensive, collective measures.
This Accountability Note describes ACADESAN’s breakthrough advocacy campaign for collective protection. It shares insights relevant for efforts to protect rights defenders and communities that go beyond conventional measures. It is based on the story told in Spanish by Mauricio Parra Bayona, ACADESAN human rights advisor, in his Accountability Working Paper, and the prefaces to that paper by former ACADESAN representative Elizabeth Moreno Barco and Jonathan Fox of ARC.
Parra reflects on how collective protection must further be adjusted to better serve other at-risk communities and organizations in Colombia.
Mauricio Parra Bayona is a political scientist from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia and a human rights
defender with experience enforcing the rights of peasant, indigenous, and black communities, who are at risk of
being victims of human rights violations. Since 2019, he has been an independent consultant on issues of prevention
and protection of risks to life, liberty, and integrity. As a human rights advisor to ACADESAN, he participated directly
in the processes documented here. Email: parmauriciodos@gmail.com
Elizabeth Moreno Barco, known to most as Chava, is a 55-year-old leader born in the community of Togoromá, in
the municipality of Litoral del San Juan, department of Chocó, on Colombia’s Pacific coast. She was ACADESAN’s
legal representative for two consecutive periods until May 2023. In 2023, she assumed the coordination of the Foro
Interétnico Solidaridad Chocó (FISCH), an organization that brings together black and indigenous communities in
the struggle for the defense of their territories and the rights of their communities.
Jonathan Fox is Professor of Development Studies in the School of International Service at American University in
Washington, D.C., where he directs the Accountability Research Center.
