DPhil student Samuel Ritholtz has written this week for the Guardian’s Global Development section about the resurgence of the LGBTQ+ community in El Carmen de Bolívar, Colombia. For nearly 30 years, during the country’s civil war, the town and its surrounding region were infamous for violence towards LGBTQ+ individuals by rightwing paramilitaries, leftwing guerrillas, government soldiers and the police, which forced many to flee. But today, LGBTQ+ people want the history of their brutal persecution by police and paramilitaries to be told.
Ritholtz writes that “This new perceived security and acceptance is in part the result of a campaign by Caribe Afirmativo, an organisation which runs a community centre in the town.”
Find out more in the article here: ‘It gives me joy’: the LGBT Colombians embracing visibility in town with a legacy of abuse
Samuel Ritholtz has organised a special event for LGBT+ History Month, on 28 February: Devon Matthews of LGBT+ refugee rights charity Rainbow Railroad, in conversation