A/HRC/43/51/Add.1 communications to the special procedures. 68 In May 2018, the Movement reported the murder of two people who claimed to be members of the Movement. Members of the Movement continue to be stigmatized and threatened and are at risk from a range of actors. Recently, Milena Florez, the Movement’s second spokesperson, had to leave the country because of death threats from illegal armed groups in connection with her work as an environmental activist, her support for crop substitution and her reporting of drug trafficking and increased drug sales in Bajo Cauca and Norte de Antioquia. 43. During his meeting with representatives of Empresas Públicas de Medellín, the Special Rapporteur received information about the project, the complaint and claim mechanisms, and about the Movimiento Ríos Vivos Antioquia, including the company’s request to the Attorney General’s Office and other State bodies to investigate and take appropriate action in relation to the two recent murders mentioned above. 69 3. Women human rights defenders 44. In the period between the signing of the Peace Agreement and June 2019, the number of women human rights defenders killed was generally on the rise, with a small decrease in 2018. In the first half of 2019, women human rights defenders made up between 17 per cent and 20 per cent of the total number of defenders killed, marking an increase over previous years. According to the information available, the women defenders killed are mostly community leaders, defenders of economic, social, cultural and environmental rights, and defenders of the rights of women and ethnic peoples. 45. The prevailing patriarchal culture in Colombian society and family and the gap in the enjoyment of rights between men and women, especially in rural areas, exacerbate and shape the risks faced by women defenders. These risks are aggravated for women defenders who belong to ethnic or socially marginalized groups. In order to take on public roles and/or defend women’s rights, many women defenders have to overcome multiple barriers within their families and communities: from having their legitimacy undermined and attacks on their identity, to being labelled “bad mothers” and “women of dubious reputation”, to threats and gender-based violence at the hands of their partners and colleagues. Afro-Colombian leader Hilda Hurtado, a defender of the rights of ethnic women since 2014, managed to establish and formalize the women’s organization África Viva en las Mujeres de los Consejos Comunitarios del Pacífico Sur Nariñense (AFRIMUCPAS) in 2018, after years of obstacles and struggle, thanks to her determination and persistence and work with her fellow female defenders. 46. Women human rights defenders who have managed to take up positions and are carrying out their work often continue to face the risks and violations described above, combined with risks posed by external actors. Like their male counterparts, women defenders receive death threats and are attacked and even killed, but these threats often have a strong sexist and sexual content and also target their children. The killings of women defenders can be extremely violent and brutal, and in some cases are preceded by sexual violence and acts of cruelty and torture.70 According to the Ombudsman’s Office, this was the case in 17 per cent of the murders committed between January 2016 and October 2017. 47. The president of the community action council of Catatumbo, also a member of the Catatumbo Campesina Association and the National Coordinator of Coca, Poppy and Marijuana Growers, became a military target of an illegal armed group for having promoted the Comprehensive National Programme for the Substitution of Illicit Crops in her village. She and her family had to leave the community after her son also received death threats in connection with her role as a defender and another of those threatened was killed. In the Norte de Santander area alone, 175 community leaders who signed the Peace Agreement are being threatened and put under pressure not to continue promoting the Comprehensive National Programme for the Substitution of Illicit Crops. 68 69 70 12 COL 7/2014 and COL 11/2013. https://reliefweb.int/report/colombia/colombia-asesinato-de-dos-integrantes-del-movimiento-r-osvivos-antioquia-y-dos-de. Information provided by Sisma Mujer on four cases in 2017. GE.19-22542