Alba Luz Pradilla has had to forcibly move twice, and to take refuge in Mexico once, due to the internal armed conflict. The first for fear of threats from the FARC and the second for the murder of her husband at the hands of the same guerrilla group (now in the process of demobilization). The third, he was advised to leave the country and went to Mexico for several months.
She raised her three children alone and today she leads the Association of Women Victims of Huila. Not many years have passed since these tragedies happened to her and her words are far from those of a person sunk in pain and pessimism: “life made me smile again and I know that I will be able to fulfill my dreams and help other victims to reach theirs”.
Just the beginning of the 21st century, when Alba Luz separated from her first husband and started working as a factory worker in Bogotá, to get the two children she had left behind from that union. After two years, she met José Alejandro, who later became his permanent companion. Another similar period passed and her third child arrived, the consolidation of home.
In 2005, the entire family moved to Huila, since José Alejandro had gotten a job taking care of a farm in the municipality of Baraya. It seemed like a beautiful place to build the family.
Only eight months passed so that they understood that it would not be like that. They received visits from guerrillas of FARC, who informed them that they wanted to recruit their 11-year-old daughter Lorena. The fact generated anguish and the couple decided to flee immediately.
They took refuge in the house of Alba´s uncle, in San Vicente del Caguán, who helped them find work, she in a restaurant and her husband as an assistant in a transport company. And the progress began to be evident.
In 2007, the couple had enough savings to set up their own business, a tobacconist who was reached by all kinds of people, including police and military. Then, the rumor arose that Alba, was an Army informant and received multiple threats that led her to close the business.
Now, the family lived on the intermunicipal public transport vehicle that her husband bought. She could not return to work since the threats against her life did not stop. He brought them to the attention of the authorities, the Red Cross, the Ombudsman’s Office, and other entities that he does not remember, without receiving any response.
For a time everything seemed to calm down. They felt happy, the children studied, the husband worked and she did housework. But the armed conflict appeared again in their lives. José Alejandro began to have problems because among the passengers he had to transport guerrillas and if he did not they threaten him. The authorities began to associate him with the guerrillas.
In December 2011 the guerrillas ordered José Alejandro to pick up and transport some food in his vehicle to deliver it to a certain place, he refused and was threatened again. A few weeks later, he was ordered to transport a group of guerrillas and he ignored it.
Daring to challenge the guerrilla group that controlled the region, had as a consequence that on December 26, 2011, after spending a happy family Christmas, José Alejandro was killed. He started on the bus at his destination very early in the morning and Alba heard from him again at 6:30 p.m. when Jesus Antonio, his brother, called her to give him the worst news of his life: he had been murdered and the vehicle was cremated.
“There I change my life, my tranquility was over, from one second to another everything changes for me”, says Alba. In the middle of the funeral home, after his co-workers picked up the body, the guerrillas told her that she had six hours to leave the town, or she would have the same luck. Alba had no choice but to flee again, with what little she could carry, this time to Bogotá.
The body of her husband was sent to the capital of the country and on December 29 she gave him a Christian burial. Then she settled in Neiva, where threats against her and her children followed her. She changed her physical appearance and it did not work, so the United Nations Agency for Refugees (UNHCR) supported her to leave the country for three months, placing her in Mexico.
She returned to Neiva, to her mother’s house. The four of them slept in a bed-room with two beds, had no job and the situation became worse every day. The need caused her eldest daughter to start working in a casino and give up her dream of becoming a dentist.
Alba, however, maintained confidence. The first thing I achieved was to become a homeowner thanks to the Red Unidos strategy of Presidency of the Republic. She received her apartment completely free in September 2015 and in this same year another love came to her life: César, a psychology student, entrepreneur, who has given her support and affection, and motivated her to have an independent business. She turned in distributor of a brand of hair products, based on snail slime; Today she takes them, with her daughter, to the entire department.
In March of this year, Alba and other women victims of the armed conflict decided to create an Association of which she is the legal representative. “With the Association of Businesswomen Victims of Huila seek to manage resources that serve as seed capital to grow and be an example of strength and improvement for other victims who need to find mirrors that encourage them to move forward, so that they overcome, like me, its victimizing fact and become entrepreneurs”, she says.
Alba dreams of her consolidated distributor in her own place, from where she can teach all Huila’s women to properly care for their hair. Her greatest wish is to see her children become successful and happy professionals. She keeps a sad memory of the war, she still generates pain, but the vision of the promising future that she has decided to carve herself encourages her to keep going little by little.
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Unit for Victims
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We strongly believe that the Internet should be available and accessible to all, and we are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability.
To accomplish this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at level AA. These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide range of disabilities. Adhering to those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to all people: people who are blind, people with motor disabilities, visually impaired, cognitively disabled, and more.
This website uses various technologies aimed at making it as accessible as possible at all times. We use an accessibility interface that allows people with specific disabilities to adjust the user interface (user interface) of the website and design it according to their personal needs.
In addition, the website uses an AI-based application that runs in the background and constantly optimizes its accessibility level. This application repairs the HTML of the website, adapts its functionality and behavior for screen readers used by blind users and for keyboard functions used by people with motor disabilities.
If you have found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we would be happy to hear from you. You can communicate with the operators of the website using the following email servicioalciudadano@unidadvictimas.gov.co
Screen reader and keyboard navigation
Our website implements the ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) attribute technique, along with several different behavior changes, to ensure that blind users who visit with screen readers can read, understand, and enjoy the features of the website. As soon as a user with a screen reader enters your site, they are immediately prompted to enter the screen reader profile so they can effectively navigate and operate your site. Here's how our website covers some of the most important screen reader requirements, along with console screenshots of code examples:
Screen Reader Optimization: We run a background process that learns website components from top to bottom, to ensure continued compliance even when the website is updated. In this process, we provide screen readers with meaningful data using the ARIA attribute set. For example, we provide accurate form tags; actionable icon descriptions (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guide for form inputs; roles of elements such as buttons, menus, modal dialogs (popups), and others. In addition, the background process scans all images on the website and provides an accurate and meaningful description based on Image Object Recognition as an ALT (alternative text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology. To activate screen reader settings at any time, users just need to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen reader users also receive automated prompts to activate screen reader mode as soon as they enter the website.
These settings are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the HTML of the website and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website work with the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdown menus with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, activate buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio items and checkboxes using the arrow keys and complete them with the space bar or the Enter key. In addition, keyboard users will find quick navigation and content skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first site elements while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving keyboard focus to them as soon as they appear, and not allowing focus to drift away from it.
Users can also use shortcuts such as "M" (menus), "H" (headers), "F" (forms), "B" (buttons), and "G" (graphics) to jump to specific items.
Disability profiles accepted on our website
Epilepsy Safe Mode: This profile allows people with epilepsy to use the website safely by eliminating the risk of seizures resulting from flashing or flickering animations and risky color combinations.
Visually Impaired Mode: This mode adjusts the website for the comfort of visually impaired users such as impaired vision, tunnel vision, cataracts, glaucoma, and others.
Cognitive Impairment Mode – This mode provides different support options to help users with cognitive impairments such as dyslexia, autism, AVC, and others to focus on the essential elements of the website more easily.
ADHD Friendly Mode – This mode helps users with ADHD and neurodevelopmental disorders to read, navigate, and focus on the main elements of the website more easily, while significantly reducing distractions.
Blind Mode – This mode configures the website to be compatible with screen readers such as JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, and TalkBack. A screen reader is software for blind users that is installed on a computer and smartphone, and websites must be compatible with it.
Keyboard Navigation Profile (Motor Disability): This profile allows people with motor disabilities to operate the website using the Tab, Shift+Tab, and Enter keys on the keyboard. Users can also use shortcuts such as "M" (menus), "H" (headers), "F" (forms), "B" (buttons), and "G" (graphics) to jump to specific items.
Additional UI, layout, and readability tweaks
Font Settings: Users can increase and decrease its size, change its family (type), adjust spacing, alignment, line height, and more.
Color Settings: Users can select various color contrast profiles, such as light, dark, inverted, and monochrome. Additionally, users can swap title, text, and background color combinations, with more than 7 different color options.
Animations: Epileptic users can stop all running animations with the click of a button. Interface-driven animations include videos, GIFs, and flashing CSS transitions.
Content Highlighting – Users can choose to emphasize important elements like links and titles. They can also choose to highlight only focused or suspended items.
Audio Mute: Users with hearing aids may experience headaches or other issues due to autoplay of audio. This option allows users to mute the entire website instantly.
Cognitive disorders: We use a search engine that is linked to Wikipedia and Wiktionary, allowing people with cognitive disorders to decipher meanings of phrases, initials, slang, and others.
Additional features: We provide users with the option to change the color and size of the cursor, use a print mode, enable a virtual keyboard, and many other features.
Browser and assistive technology support
Our goal is to support the widest possible range of browsers and assistive technologies, so our users can choose the tools that work best for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all the major systems that comprise more than 95 % of the user market share, including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (readers). screen), for both Windows and MAC users.
Notes, comments and feedback
Despite our best efforts to allow anyone to adjust the website to their needs, there may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of being made accessible, or lack an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we're continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating, and improving its features and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this to achieve the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advances. For assistance, please contact servicioalciudadano@unidadvictimas.gov.co