International Campaign of Solidarity with the Villalba Family
Here we publish a press release to announce the situation of political prissoners in Paraguay:
Hunger strike by Paraguayan political prisoners: Laura Villalba, Carmen Villalba and Francisca Andino
The International Campaign for Solidarity with the Villalba Family announces that the Paraguayan political prisoners Laura and Carmen Villalba, together with Francisca Andino, have today, 4 August 2026, begun a hunger strike to demand an urgent transfer from a maximum-security regime to a standard regime; as part of their campaign to end the isolation and harassment to which they have been subjected since 12 October 2024, first at Minga Guazú prison, then at Emboscada prison, in a wing reserved for men, and currently at COMPLE (Prison Complex for Women Deprived of Liberty), in Emboscada.
The COMPLE is the only prison in Paraguay reserved exclusively for women. The special closed high-security regime keeps them isolated, alone, in individual cells, 24 hours a day. This is a punitive and torturous regime, characterised by inhuman and degrading treatment, in which they have no access to adequate medical care, clothing, or the necessary water and food, and are unable to receive visits from friends or members of the International Campaign.
Carmen has been imprisoned since 2004. In 2021, she served her full 18-year sentence. However, the judicial, political and prison systems have conspired to fabricate new cases to prevent her release. Francisca, aged 65 and suffering from multiple health problems, has been imprisoned for 22 years; she therefore served her full sentence this year, but remains isolated behind the walls of injustice. Carmen and Francisca obtained their degrees in psychology whilst in prison; they wish to continue their studies, but this is being denied to them, just as it is for Laura, who is a nurse and wished to continue her studies.
Laura has been imprisoned for six years (she was arrested in 2020, a few months after the murder of the girls – María Carmen, her daughter, and Lilian Mariana, her niece, Carmen’s daughter – and a few days after the disappearance of Lichita (Carmen’s daughter), whilst she was desperately searching for her).
Laura still has 25 years left to serve, according to her sentence, which was a stark illustration of the cruelty that prevails in Paraguay. She is the only person imprisoned for the murder of the girls (judged to be a ‘bad mother’ and convicted as a member of the EPP group – of which she was never a part). The witnesses for the prosecution against her were members of the Joint Mission Forces who took part in this crime.
With one month to go until the sixth anniversary of the girls’ murder and Lichita’s disappearance, the International Campaign is demanding that Paraguay’s Ministry of Justice remedy this unlawful situation affecting the political prisoners, and is denouncing the failure to comply with the recommendations made by the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances regarding Lichita’s disappearance and the murder of María Carmen and Laura Mariana Villalba. To this end, the 9th international delegation will travel to Paraguay around 2 September to hold talks with government authorities and organisations defending human rights, women’s rights and children’s rights, and will visit the political prisoners at their place of detention, in order to stand by them and convey our concern for their freedom and their lives.
We ask for nothing more than justice. Human rights and women’s rights must also be respected for those in prison. Keeping them in a punitive situation within this climate of impunity in a state that kills its own children constitutes a crime against humanity, for which those responsible in successive governments will be brought to justice at both national and international levels.
On August, 13 we’ve got the information that Carmen, Laura, and Francis at the Comple—the Women’s Correctional Facility—in Emboscada, Paraguay had ended their hunger strike, but they’re asking to keep up the activities planned for these days so that we can bring about a change in the maximum isolation regime they’re under—which they say is worse than in the previous prisons where they were held.
What they formally asked of us is that we continue to push for justice for the girls and for Lichita to be found alive, that Carmen be allowed to participate in the search for her, and that the prosecutor’s attempt to suspend the case involving the girls not be permitted.
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