Social media offer a global platform for the work of activists and their messages. But women who prominently campaign for peace and justice quickly experience an often violent backlash both in virtual and physical spaces. At an event we organised with the Canadian Embassy in Bern on 1 April 2025, Sudanese peace activist and gender expert Rabab Baldo and the Colombian human rights lawyer Luz Marina Monzón Cifuentes spoke about how cyberviolence is part of a broader effort to silence women like them.

International support for peace in Colombia must not waver, warns human rights lawyer Luz Marina Monzón Cifuentes in an interview with swissinfo. What is needed now is a peace policy that focuses on the small communities caught up in the violence. In April, we invited Luz Marina to an event in Bern.

As a peace organisation based in Switzerland, we have been exploring the question: What does a decolonised approach to peacebuilding based on feminist values look like in practice? Our global collaboration with partners has repeatedly shown us that the challenges to women's peace and security can only be overcome through transnational strategies. These are geopolitically relevant, emerge from local initiatives and are led by local women peace activists on the ground. The first step in implementing our localisation efforts was the opening of an office in Colombia on 1 May 2025.