Patricia Tobón Yagarí

Patricia Tobón Yagarí, an Emberá indigenous attorney in Colombia, currently works with the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia. Her expertise is in constitutional rights. She has worked on educating Emberá communities about the dangers of female genital mutilation, and is dedicated to ending the practice among her people through education and advocacy. She has also worked significantly to analyze the impact of the extraction of natural resources on indigenous communities in Colombia. Among other efforts, she has testified before the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia about the ongoing human rights abuses occurring in Columbia’s indigenous communities. She also presented before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 2013 about how natural resource extraction and violence have threatened the annihilation of indigenous communities and led to a sharp increase in suicides among indigenous women. Tobón Yagarí co-authored the UNICEF report “Suicidio adolescente en pueblos indígenas: Tres estudios de caso."