Diana María Salcedo López

Diana María Salcedo López (@dianamslopez) is an antimilitarist feminist activist for human rights and peace in Colombia.

She is the president of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom’s Colombian section (@LIMPALCOLOMBIA), a feminist and anti-militarist organization that has been in Colombia since 1998. She is a national representative in a special body created to monitor women’s rights in the implementation of the 2016 peace agreement between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC-EP).

In more than 16 years as a consultant Diana has worked for non-governmental organizations, international cooperation agencies and the United Nations in Colombia. She has worked for government agencies, supporting the reincorporation of women combatants into civilian life, the inclusion of a gender and intersectional perspective in public policies and monitoring territorial processes. She has experience with peace building and the empowerment of women victims of the armed conflict. She has written about women human rights defenders and women victims’ rights. Her published articles approach issues such as disarmament, the impact of small arms on women’s lives, sexual violence as a weapon of war, and women’s participation in peace building.

Diana is a political scientist from the National University of Colombia. She holds a master’s degree in Women’s studies, Gender and Citizenship from the University of Barcelona and a master’s degree in Human Rights, Rule of Law and Democratization from the Alcalá de Henares University of Madrid. She was recognized as a Force for Change by the United Nations Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2017. She led LIMPAL to win the 2022 Human Rights Defenders award granted by the Diakonia development organization and the ACT Swedish Church in Colombia.