Promoting and Strengthening Women's Civilian Leadership in Security
I'm currently developing research selected by Red Unidas (supported by the German Federal Foreign Office), focused on the trajectories, challenges, and contributions of civilian women who have held security leadership positions in the region. The goal is to fill a gap: when information is produced about women's leadership in security, the focus tends to be on women within security forces or on their participation in public policy-making processes. However, there is a notable gap regarding civilian women who have held leadership positions in security institutions. This research seeks to contribute precisely to that gap, starting with the highest-level positions. The research aims to generate qualitative and quantitative data, as well as an advocacy product, to make this reality visible and promote civilian women's leadership in security.
This concern, however, is not new. For some time, Juanita Vélez Durán, co-founder of the Laboratory of Justice and Criminal Policy, and I have been united by the conviction that women must be leading in security and that our absence in these spaces is unacceptable. So together we set out to design a program aimed at strengthening civilian women's leadership in the sector through transformative approaches.
In 2023, with seed capital from FESCOL, we developed a preliminary program content proposal initially designed for Colombia, with support from Universidad EAFIT and enriched by input from five external experts. During that process, it became evident that the challenges transcend the Colombian context and require a Latin American perspective, so we decided to project the program as a regional initiative. We're currently seeking funding for its implementation.
Women’s Collective for Transatlantic Security
What began as an idea to create a special chapter on redefining the security relationship between Latin America and the European Union ended up being a Collective made up of six Latin American women, experts in security and peacebuilding, residing in various European cities.
In 2024, I began contacting acquaintances and referrals. With each conversation, we discovered common experiences: our region continues to be narrated with condescension or ignorance, we're in masculinized environments, and we see how some public discussions about security in Europe take forms that, from our experience, we anticipate won't have the best results.
So we decided to create the Collective to amplify the voices of migrant women with security experience and contribute to these debates; enrich European discussions by incorporating knowledge from Latin America, understood as a knowledge-producing region; and anticipate discussions already experienced in our countries, avoiding the reproduction of frameworks that aren't transformative.
We're currently in conversations to carry out a first dialogue in a cycle we're planning. We'll soon launch our website, where there will be more information about who we are and the topics we focus on.
Amplifying Women's Voices in Security
This objective is where my entire journey of dedicating myself to rethinking security began. It seems that men are the natural fit not only to lead security but also to be its public voices—they're the ones usually invited on radio programs, television, op-eds, and news to talk about or debate security.
Although some women have managed to occupy these spaces, they remain the exception. It's not just about parity, but about competence: we have much to contribute to a sector designed almost exclusively by men. And since power and attention feed each other, it's essential that we're in the public conversation. This isn't a favor, it's democracy.
So, with the intention of amplifying women's voices and experiences in security, in 2020 I decided to organize webinars. Since I didn't have my own platform, I approached universities to carry them out in partnership. I organized conversations, mostly with women, about Women and Security, Security in Cali—because we don't always have to talk exclusively about "our issues"—and Women and Justice (I reflected on these conversations in this article). I also built a database for journalists and editors with expert women in security interested in participating in media, as a response to the idea that "there are no women who speak on these topics.
These small actions allowed me to meet and connect with many women, networks, and initiatives that shared the same goal: a more complete security, also built from our visions and leadership. It confirmed that there are many of us working on this, albeit from different places and with different strategies.