Women peace activists refusing to be silenced

Although social media platforms can showcase the work of women peace activists and amplify their messages, their presence online exposes them to significant dangers. Particularly women peacebuilders and leaders face very real threats every day on these platforms. In an event we are organising together with the Embassy of Canada to Switzerland and Liechtenstein, we cast a spotlight on this issue. After the screening of the Canadian documentary Backlash, Misogyny in the Digital Age, two prominent women peace activists from Colombia and Sudan will share their personal experiences with hate speech and their strategies against these attempts to silence them.

The film Backlash, Misogyny in the Digital Age, directed by Léa Clermont-Dion and Guylaine Maroist, tells the harrowing stories of four women whose lives are overturned by cyber-violence. The four stories from Canada, Italy, France and the USA demonstrate what it means to live with so-called “virtual” violence.

Strategies against the backlash

Following the screening, feminist leader and former FARC peace negotiator Victoria Sandino Simanca Herrera (Colombia) and seasoned peace activist and gender expert Dr. Rabab Muhamed Ali Baldo (Sudan) will share their personal experiences of online and offline violence. They will also share their strategies on how they counter the backlash and why they refuse to be silenced.

Information

The film is in English and French with English subtitles. The panel discussion will be in English and Spanish (translation to and from Spanish provided).

When: 6-8.30pm, Tuesday, 1 April 2025, followed by an apéro

Where: cineClub, Laupenstrasse 17, 3008 Bern, Switzerland

Registration: The event is free, but due to limited space, we kindly ask you to register by 24 March 2025 via this online form.

Welcoming remarks: H.E. Patrick Wittmann, Ambassador of Canada to Switzerland and Liechtenstein

Panel facilitator: Deborah Schibler, director PeaceWomen Across the Globe

Panel participants

• Victoria Sandino Simanca Herrera was a commander in the FARC-EP (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia - Ejército del Pueblo) for 24 years, a negotiator in the peace talks, and a signatory of the 2016 Final Peace Agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP. She also coordinated the gender sub-commission, which played a key role in shaping the agreement’s gender-specific provisions. From 2018 to 2022, she served as a senator in the Republic of Colombia and worked in the Office of the High Commissioner for Peace in 2023. She describes herself as a Black woman, social leader, feminist, human rights defender and advocate for rural communities, Indigenous peoples and women in peacebuilding across Colombia. She is a journalist and sociologist.

• Dr. Rabab Mohamed Ali Baldo is a Sudanese gender and inclusivity expert and peace activist with extensive experience advocating for women’s participation in peace processes. Since the 1990s, she has played a key role in integrating women’s voices into Sudan’s major peace agreements. She has worked with UN agencies and served as a Senior Gender & Inclusivity Advisor for the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), ensuring women’s roles in negotiations such as South Sudan’s Revitalized Peace Agreement. She is a member of FemWise-Africa and an active participant in various global peace networks. She is also the founder of the Sudanese Women’s Shuttle Diplomacy Initiative, which demands an end to the war in Sudan and the inclusion of women in the peace process. Amid Sudan’s ongoing conflict, she has been advocating for civilian protection and supporting Sudanese refugees in Egypt.

Interview with Rabab Baldo: "We women are never consulted."

Information about our work in Colombia.

More on our work for women's participation in peace processes.