The Defenders
“The drop of water breaks the earth not because of its strength but because of its persistence.”
The Defenders is the story of the men and women who dedicate their lives to fight for Human Rights in Latin America. These social leaders were once ordinary people from many walks of life: stay at home parents, corporate lawyers, farmers; parents, sons and daughters so moved by the injustices they witnessed or suffered that they changed the path of their lives to serve their communities in the fight against societal, environmental and power injustices.
Every defender faces risks in terms of combating corruption, from defamation and stigmatisation, unwarranted criminal or civil proceedings, to intimidation and attacks, forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings. More than 300 human rights defenders were killed in 2019 alone. Two-thirds of these killings took place in Latin America where impunity from prosecution is too often the norm. Ensuring the safety of these defenders is vital at a time when many of their most cherished freedoms are in jeopardy.
The defenders is a story-telling project celebrating the work of human rights defenders. This project was born in September 2018 when I travelled with the PBI UK Director to Colombia to meet human rights defenders and record their stories. Since then, they have travelled to Mexico, Honduras and Kenya and gathered over 100 interviews with human rights defenders from all walks of life.
See full project at www.the-defenders.co.uk
Solo exhibition 'Portraits of Resilience, Hope and Solidarity' (The Defenders) at Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. London. December 2023.
