She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.
Nilda Estigarribia grew up fighting against the abuses committed by the Paraguayan military dictatorship led by General Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989). She was part of the only organization for the defense of human rights to exist during that period. She was under observation by the military forces. Several times, she escaped becoming a victim of repression. She was constantly banging on the doors of police stations and jail cells to find and assist torture victims. The Dictatorship ended–but her activism did not. There are still many tasks pending … (1000peacewomen 1/2).
She says: « During the dictatorship, torture had its most visible identification in men, while the faces of women were evidenced for giving humanitarian assistance in prisons, hospitals and cemeteries.
She is mentionned as Political Heroe.
Las pantallas del poder. (Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos) (TT: Screens of power.)(TA: Human rights comission).
Nilda Estigarribia – Paraguay
She works for Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos CONADEH.
… « When I was 13 years old I escaped through the roofs and I jumped over the walls slipping away from the repressive police of that time ». Thus said Nilda Estigarribia, who was born and grew up in Paraguay. The memories referred to are from the time of the military dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989). Nilda was then a militant member of the Youth Section of the Partido Liberal Radical Auténtico (PLRA), known as the “Avalón Club“. The experience of seeing her companions taken by the police and returned having been tortured had a decisive influence on her in her untiring fight for the defence of human rights.
She was born in the rural community of Natalicio Talavera, a jurisdiction in the administrative district of Guaira. Nilda had a happy childhood. She was born the middle child of nine brothers and sisters under the discipline of a father who instilled into her the value of honesty and dedication to work. As an adolescent that gave her the security she needed to enter the Youth Organization.
« We used to arrange clandestine meetings in cellars, inner patios and family houses, fearing that the repressive forces would come at any moment. We distributed pamphlets, painted murals on the walls of the streets and we slipped into schools and universities to make denunciations and we had to do it quickly, to erase all traces as soon as possible ».