In its eighth edition, FOKUS Women magazine continues to report on the work and reflections of our Latin American partner organisations in Colombia and Guatemala. We would therefore like to thank all the organisations for contributing to this publication, which aims to reflect the ideas and actions that FOKUS supports in the region.
This ongoing effort to publish the magazine regularly since 2020 reflects FOKUS’ commitment to supporting the struggles and demands of women and LBT people in the region, despite the current situation in which uncertainties regarding democracy, and consequently human rights, loom over the civilian population and society at large.
We are facing an even more challenging context: the shrinking of civic space in many countries across the region, alongside the scaling back or restructuring of development cooperation.
It would appear that what many governments regard as an achievement – such as gaining membership of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in order to be classified as middle-income countries – has significant implications for civil society organisations that rely on development aid to continue strengthening their organisational processes at a local level, under precarious conditions and with many constraints on their progress, given that such status would imply a reduced need for cooperation support.
Some governments continue to regard militarisation, control over people’s lives and the logic of security as key elements of their governance, to the detriment of the rights and social policies that should assist impoverished and marginalised sectors of society.
Women and LBT people fear a rollback of the rights achieved to date, which, whilst not all those they had hoped for, do reflect the constant advocacy work of women’s movements, feminists, LGBTIQ+ people, peasant movements, Indigenous movements, Afro-descendant movements, youth movements, environmentalists, etc., to secure these rights. It now seems that the task is to defend what has been achieved.
FOKUS remains committed to supporting these organisations which, from the grassroots and within their local communities, continue to believe that another world is possible and that it is built collectively.