Yanette: My sister was forcibly disappeared by the Colombian military

Yanette Bautista was just 27 when her sister Nydia was forcibly disappeared in 1987. Three years later, Yanette found Nydia’s remains – she had been murdered by state authorities and her whereabouts concealed to her family. It was the first time she learnt about enforced disappearances, an issue that is rife in Colombia – even today – with an estimated 200,000 people disappeared between 1985 and 2016 according to the 2022 Final Report of Colombia’s Truth Commission.

Since her sister’s enforced disappearance, Yanette, now 66, has dedicated her life to supporting Colombian women to search for their loved ones without fear. She has set up her own organization, as well as spearheaded a new bill that became a law in 2024, calling for better protection for women searchers. In honour of the bill, Colombia has recently introduced International Women’s Searchers Day, which takes place on 23 October.

Here she tells her incredible story, spanning three decades…

I found my sister three years after she was taken away and disappeared. I knew it was her. She was wearing the same clothes she had on the day she disappeared. It had been a day of celebration, the day our children received their first communion. When we found Nydia, she was still wearing the same dress and a jacket I had lent her. The only thing missing was her underwear. There was no reason for her underwear to be missing. I had to beg the authorities to hand her body over. I even threatened to go on hunger strike. When they eventually agreed to give me Nydia’s body, they handed it over in a trash bag.

My sister was forcibly disappeared when I was 27. At the time, I didn’t know enforced disappearances existed. She was studying economics at university. We knew she was part of an opposition guerrilla group, M-19, that signed a peace agreement and became a legal political party a couple of years later. We thought that the worst that could happen was for her to be sent to jail by a judge for her political activities. It felt shocking to learn that we lived in a country where there was a huge lack of human rights. If you supported the opposition, you paid for it. It was a situation of desperation and confusion.

My father and I started searching together – we went to hospitals, to military brigades, to the police intelligence, the secret police and the jails to see what could have happened. It was dangerous from the beginning as I started to be threatened many times just for asking for her. Eventually I was forcibly displaced. I left my home, sent my children to live elsewhere and I moved to another location. I soon started receiving anonymous calls. On one occasion, someone said: ‘Don’t look for her, she’s fine.’ It wasn’t a comforting call, and I knew I had to continue searching.

Yanette Bautista stands among a group of women as the sun sets in Colombia
Yanette Bautista is the founder of Nydia Erika Bautista Foundation, created to fight against impunity in enforced disappearance in Colombia.

I sought help from the Colombian NGO Committee for Solidarity with Political Prisoners (CSPP) and we were provided with legal assistance, while the Association of Family Members of Disappeared Detainees (ASFADDES) shared advice. While I searched for my sister, I started working with other families and we eventually got in touch with Colombia’s Inspector for Human Rights – he was determined to help. He somehow found a witness who claimed to know where Nydia was. By that point I didn’t have hope we would find her alive. I’d come to realize that those searching for their loved ones, were searching for people who had been murdered.

A case was opened, and the well-known lawyer Eduardo Umaña took it on. I was told the witness was part of the Colombian military. He wanted to confess and said Nydia had been murdered and was buried in a rural town near Bogota. Together, with the inspector, forensic experts and our lawyer, we exhumed the body. I immediately knew it was her, even though she had been buried under NN (No Name).

Life changed dramatically

After Nydia disappeared, my life changed. I used to be an executive secretary for an important CEO, but it felt artificial after I started searching. I found it impossible to continue in this bubble, while people were being forcibly disappeared. That’s why I took off my heels and put on my shoes so I could start searching.

After my sister disappeared, life changed. So I took off my heels and put on my shoes so I could start searching for her.

Yanette Baustista

Even though we found Nydia’s body, we have never got the justice we deserve. The inspector for human rights sanctioned in 1995 one general and four military officials – a first in our country. However, two months later, he had to flee because he started receiving threats. During that time, I was calling for a change in law, speaking out about the military – and I was eight months pregnant. I was under constant surveillance. Eventually the four sanctioned men were set free even though it was clear it was the military committing these crimes.

By this time, it was too dangerous for me to stay in Colombia. Following a trip to Germany I just couldn’t come home. In 1997, I was forced into exile for seven years. During this time, I worked for Amnesty International, writing and researching about violence against women. I also became President of Federation of Family Members of Disappeared Persons (FEDEFAM), working with victims of forced disappeared in different countries.

Returning home

When I eventually returned to Colombia in 2007, I started my own organization. I’d met people from the Philippines, Albania, Kosovo, Turkey. We had so much collective knowledge. I wanted to empower families to search for their loved ones, so we started our organisation in my living room, with a small group of families.

Our collective, Nydia Erika Bautista Foundation, is designed for women to help one another. There’s no hierarchy. It is an exchange of knowledge. We provide legal support, document stories and advocate. We have a leadership school to empower the women searching in different parts of the country. We work in eight regions of Colombia and we are supporting 519 cases.

Our collective is mostly women – our research has revealed 95% of those searching for their loved ones are women – they’re mothers, sisters and wives. In a patriarchal society, it’s a task handed to the caregivers. But to me, we’re more than caregivers. When women start searching, we become human rights defenders – searching fearlessly, we challenge the rules of silence and oppression imposed by those who disappeared our loved ones, and we end up defending the rights of everyone.

Yanette leads a workshop with women searchers in Bogotá, Colombia.

The women who search are incredibly brave, even though there is no support from the authorities and no political will to investigate these crimes. In fact, enforced disappearance isn’t seen as a crime – it’s normalized; sometimes it’s even justified by the Colombian authorities.

Moving forward

As a collective, we want to turn our pain into rights. That’s why we wrote a law in a bid to empower women searching for the forcibly disappeared and to promote the rights of these women. It was signed into law in 2024.

However, our next task is to ensure it is implemented and becomes a reality. We have so many allies supporting us, including Amnesty International, and it is spurring us on every day. 

While I have hope going forward, advocating for this law brings fear. As I continue to call for change, enforced disappearances are continuing, women searchers are suffering violence, and our funds are decreasing – making our work even tougher.

However, in my darker moments, I remember Nydia. Nydia dreamt of an army of women, who were armed with voices, not guns. I am determined to pursue her dream, so women can search without fear of suffering violence or of not having food at their family’s table, so women can search with freedom and dignity.

This piece is part of Amnesty International’s new campaign #SearchingWithoutFear, supporting women across the Americas searching for their loved ones. It was originally published in Rolling Stone Español 

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