Gloria Ushigua is Coordinator of the Sápara women's organisation Ashiñwaka, which defends Sápara people's ancestral land and environmental rights in the province of Pastaza. Since 2010, the human rights defender has been invested in the defence of her community in Llachama Cocha, primarily against private and State-owned companies seeking to exploit oil deposits in Sápara territory. On 19 August 2015, three policemen broke into Gloria Ushigua's house in the city of Puyo. They shocked the human rights defender with tasers and beat her badly. The police also used tear gas inside the house causing Gloria, and those present including children, to almost suffocate. The human rights defender's office and property, including her fax and desk computer, was destroyed in the raid.