Colombian Women Say No to the FTA
Last week ART, together with WOLA, Oxfam-America and AFSC, co sponsored a delegation of women political and civic leaders from Colombia for a week of lobbying to express their opposition to the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. In over 40 Congressional visits the delegation stunned policy makers with first hand testimony of their lived experience of military and economic violence and its impact on women and children. The women urged members of Congress to oppose the FTA with Colombia stating that it will only exacerbate the extreme human rights violations they currently endure.
The testimony of these women leaders from Colombia stand in stark contradiction to the message that President Uribe of Colombia brings to the U.S. Congress. The Uribe government hired a public relations firm headed by a senior advisor to Senator Clinton to run a $300,000 lobbying campaign in support of the FTA and has also put another Washington based lobbying firm on a $40,000 a month retainer.
We don't have the funds to lobby the Congress the way President Uribe can, but we can raise our voices and exercise our rights as citizens to make our message known to our representatives in Congress. Let your members of Congress know that the FTA with Colombia will negatively impact women, children and workers rights.
