Zaida Maria Catalán (6 October 1980 – 12 March 2017) was a Swedish politician, lawyer, and human rights expert who was a member of the Green Party and leader of the Young Greens of Sweden between 2001 and 2005. She left active party politics in 2010 to pursue international work in peacebuilding and human rights, including roles with the Folke Bernadotte Academy and European Union civilian missions.
As a former politician, she advocated on issues including the environment, animal rights, and human rights (including support of Sweden's sex purchase law; see Prostitution in Sweden). During her time in Swedish politics, she co-authored early political motions advocating for consent-based sexual offence legislation. Sweden later adopted consent-based rape legislation, which entered into force on 1 June 2018. Similar consent-based legal frameworks have since been introduced in multiple European countries.
Catalán worked between 2011 and 2016 in conflict-affected and post-conflict environments through European Union civilian missions, Swedish governmental peace and security institutions, and United Nations-related assignments focused on human rights, gender equality, and the documentation of conflict-related sexual violence. She held field and advisory roles in regions including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, and the Palestinian territories, where she supported security sector reform, justice sector capacity-building, and the documentation of serious human rights violations. In March 2017, Catalán and her American colleague Michael Sharp were kidnapped and murdered while serving as United Nations experts on a UN-mandated investigative mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Subsequent United Nations monitoring and investigative reporting documented indications that the killings may not have been random and may have been preceded by surveillance and coordination involving armed actors and individuals linked to state security structures. These findings contributed to public and investigative discussion regarding whether the UN experts may have been deliberately targeted while carrying out investigative work.
On 29 January 2022, a DRC military court sentenced more than 50 individuals in connection with the murders of Catalán and Sharp. Appeals proceedings have continued, and United Nations monitoring mechanisms and international observers have raised concerns regarding delays, evidentiary handling, and procedural constraints affecting the judicial process.
Biography
Early life Zaida Catalán was born in Stockholm but grew up in Högsby in Småland. Her mother was Swedish while her father had come to Sweden as a political refugee from Chile in 1975. She studied law at Stockholm University, obtaining a Master of Law degree. Catalán was fluent in Swedish, English, French and Spanish.
Political career With a background as an animal rights activist, Catalán became the leader of the Young Greens of Sweden in 2001. After two years as co-spokesperson alongside Gustav Fridolin and two years alongside Einar Westergaard, she stepped down from the leadership of the Young Greens in 2005. During this period, she was also nominated as one of the top 100 most influential young people in Sweden by the magazine Weekly Business.
Between 2004 and 2010, she worked as a lawyer and legal adviser for the Green Party's parliamentary office in the Parliament of Sweden. In this role, she advised members of parliament on constitutional law, rule of law, corporate and association law, migration, environmental law and gender equality, including policy work related to sexual violence legislation. She contributed to the development of a new political strategy on gender equality, participated in negotiations with the government on sexual violence legislation, supported election campaign strategy development, and helped initiate a national political campaign that contributed to the revision of Swedish rape legislation. She also worked on cross-party policy cooperation on urban development and strategies for social change, drafted policy strategies including proposals related to energy law, coordinated media and public relations work for MPs, organised parliamentary seminars, and participated in parliamentary reference groups related to oversight of secret surveillance.
After the Swedish general election in 2006, she served as a Member of the Stockholm City Council for the Green Party until 2010. During her term, she helped prevent the closure of municipally funded shelters for abused women and successfully negotiated increased municipal funding for women's shelters. During the same period, she also served in several politically appointed governance and oversight roles, including as a member of the Committee on Police Affairs for Stockholm County Council (2007–2010), where she negotiated Green Party priorities in the police budget, including stronger accountability mechanisms and increased police awareness of sexual violence victims. She also served on the board of the municipal housing company Stockholmshem (2006–2010), where she worked on budget and strategic priorities and promoted training for housing staff on gender-based violence awareness.
Catalán also held several leadership and governance roles within civil society connected to her political engagement on gender equality and protection from violence. She served as Vice President of the Board of Terrafem (2007–2009), Sweden's national organisation supporting migrant women exposed to violence, where she oversaw implementation of the organisation's budget and annual work plan and helped increase both membership and public funding. She also served on the board of the National Organisation for Women's and Girls’ Shelters (ROKS) (2008–2010), where she contributed to organisational budgeting and strategy, helped modernise board working methods by incorporating perspectives of migrant women into national materials on gender-based violence, and helped increase funding for shelters supporting girls exposed to sexual violence. In addition, she worked directly with survivors through Terrafem's national helpline and shelter network, providing legal, practical and multilingual support to migrant women exposed to violence.
At the European level, she was a substitute member of the European Parliament between 2009 and 2014. She also stood as a candidate in the 2009 European Parliament elections, where she placed fifth in internal party selection and received 16,300 personal votes in the election, which was not sufficient to secure a seat.
In December 2010, Catalán left her parliamentary legal advisory role to pursue international assignments, including work as an expert on sexual violence and gender within the European Union Police Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (EUPOL RDC).
Between 2011 and 2012, she worked as an expert on gender, human rights and sexual violence within EUPOL RDC, based in eastern DRC. She was responsible for implementing the EU Gender Action Plan in the field, advising and training specialised police units on gender and sexual violence, developing projects to strengthen police capacity to respond to sexual violence and support survivors, and supporting the professional development of female police officers. She also participated in police station audits assessing compliance with international human rights standards and national sexual violence legislation. During this period, she designed and delivered the first project promoting female police officers in North Kivu, trained police units deployed to protect villages affected by mass sexual violence, trained hundreds of Congolese criminal investigation officers on gender, sexual violence and human rights, and managed donor relations and project budgeting in cooperation with international partners.
In October 2012, she worked as a lecturer on gender for the Swedish government's Folke Bernadotte Academy, contributing to the international course Leadership and Gender in Peace Operations. In this capacity, she delivered training and strategic guidance on gender mainstreaming in conflict and peace operation environments.
From 2011 onwards, Catalán worked extensively in international peacebuilding and civilian crisis management, including within European Union civilian missions and through Swedish governmental peace and security structures.Her work focused on gender equality, protection of civilians, and strengthening security and justice sector responses to gender-based violence through training, advising, monitoring and programme implementation in high-risk environments. She served in field and advisory roles in Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories, working with police, prosecutors, judicial authorities and ministries to strengthen institutional responses to human rights violations and gender-based violence. In Afghanistan, she designed and delivered training programmes for police, prosecutors and legal professionals, supported national institutions in developing gender policies and action plans, and contributed to EU monitoring activities. In the Palestinian territories, including work based in Ramallah, she advised mission leadership on gender integration across security and justice programmes, supported national justice and security institutions, helped develop specialised judicial capacity on gender-based violence, trained police officers, and contributed to policy and strategy development in cooperation with international partners including UN Women.
In 2016, Catalán began working in an expert group for the United Nations reporting to the Security Council and directly to the Secretary-General, investigating human rights violations and abuses against civilians in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Work documenting sexual violence in Kavumu in 2016
During her work in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, Catalán was involved in documentation and investigation related to cases of sexual violence against children in the village of Kavumu, South Kivu Province. As part of field-based human rights investigations, she interviewed victims and families and collected testimonial and evidentiary material in line with international documentation standards.
As part of standard human rights documentation practices, Catalán and her team at times used concealed recording equipment to document statements from individuals associated with armed groups. Material gathered through these investigations formed part of the wider evidentiary record used in legal proceedings against sect leader and politician Frédéric Batumike and members of his militia.
Batumike and several associated militia members were later convicted by Congolese courts of crimes including sexual violence against children. Court proceedings and human rights reporting documented cases involving very young victims, including infants. The case has been cited in reporting and academic discussion as part of broader efforts to address impunity for conflict-related sexual violence in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Lead-up to the killings
Investigative publications describe the lead-up to the killings within the broader political and security crisis affecting the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) during the mid-2010s. These publications situate the events within the escalation of the Kamuina Nsapu insurgency in the Kasai region, which developed amid disputes over customary authority, expanding militia activity, and counter-insurgency operations by Congolese security forces during a period of national political tension linked to delayed elections and contested governance.
Media investigations and United Nations reporting characterised the Kasai crisis as involving mass displacement, allegations of mass graves, and widespread violence involving both militia groups and state security forces.