GENDER AND 

THE ROLE OF WOMEN 

IN COLOMBIA’S 

PEACE PROCESS

Prepared for the United Nations Global Study 

on 15 Years of Implementation of UN Security 

Council Resolution 1325 (2000)

MARCH 4, 2016 

VIRGINIA M. BOUVIER

UN WOMEN 

BACKGROUND PAPER
© 2016 UN Women. All rights reserved. 

The views expressed in this publication are those of 

the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the 

views of UN Women, the United Nations or any of its 

affiliated organizations.

Author: Dr. Virginia M. Bouvier, Senior Advisor, Peace Processes, U.S. 

Institute of Peace

Editor: Leigh Pasqual

Reviewed by: Nahla Valji, Emily Kenney

Recommended citation: Dr. Virginia M. Bouvier, “Gender and the Role 

of Women in Colombia’s Peace Process,” (New York: UN Women, 

March 4, 2016).

New York, March 2016
DR. VIRGINIA M. BOUVIER, SENIOR ADVISOR FOR PEACE 

PROCESSES AT THE UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE

GENDER AND 

THE ROLE OF WOMEN 

IN COLOMBIA’S 

PEACE PROCESS

UN WOMEN 

BACKGROUND PAPER

Advance copy
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 3

ABSTRACT:

The promises and visions articulated in United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 and 

subsequent UN resolutions and position papers that recognize the connection between 

gender equity and women’s participation in all aspects of peace processes and peacebuilding 

on the one hand, and international peace and security on the other, have not been fulfilled. 

Nonetheless, these resolutions have opened the way for advocacy that has had some successes in specific contexts. Colombia offers one such case. 

Through desk research, literature review, and personal interviews, this paper provides an overview 

of the Colombian internal armed conflict and the 

peace process currently underway to transform it.1

It begins with an historical overview of the conflict, 

and then explores some of its gender dimensions. 

It analyzes the differential impact of the internal 

armed conflict on the lives of women and men, 

LBGTI persons, and boys, girls and adolescents, as 

well as the intersectionality between multiple 

components of identity, including gender, class, 

age, ethnicity, and region. The paper then turns to 

the peace process. It explores the roles of women 

in preparing the ground for a political solution to 

Colombia’s internal armed conflict. It considers 

women’s official, semi-official, and unofficial roles 

at, around, and outside the peace talks that were 

launched in late 2012 between the Colombian government and the Colombian Revolutionary Armed 

Forces (FARC-EP). This paper underscores the essentially gendered nature of both war and peace. It 

assesses shifting gender roles and ideologies, and 

the ways that they intersect with a peace process 

and transitions in a post-Accord period, particularly in relation to issues of transitional justice. 

Finally, my paper explores how greater consideration of gendered dynamics, as well as increased 

participation of women in the peace process and 

all commissions and bodies created to implement 

peace accords, will better equip Colombia to address the challenges ahead and will help ensure a 

more sustainable peace. 
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 4

INTRODUCTION 

TO THE CONFLICT

When peace talks began in 2012 between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary 

Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP), one half-century of internal armed conflict had already 

left in its wake a death toll surpassing 220,000—more than 80 per cent of whom were civilians. From 1958-2012, five million Colombians were forcibly displaced from 6.6 million hectares 

of land—an area roughly equivalent to the size of Switzerland—in what was effectively a 

counter-agrarian reform that consolidated half of Colombia’s land in the hands of 1 per cent 

of its population.2

 By 2015, the number of internally displaced people (IDP) registered with the 

Colombian government was 5.859 million, giving Colombia the largest IDP population in the 

world after Syria.3

 About 58 percent of these IDPs are female.4

Colombia’s conflict has varied over time and by geography. What started in 1948 as a partisan conflict 

exploded into a decade of violence (“La Violencia”) that 

was resolved with an agreement between the Liberal 

and Conservative parties to create a National Front 

that gave both parties a shared monopoly on political 

power and blocked an incipient movement for social 

change. While the partisan conflict was mitigated 

in the short term, vast inequities in land tenure and 

distribution of wealth and resources, combined with 

the political, economic, and social exclusion of vast 

portions of the population, particularly rural peasants, led to a surge in organized peaceful resistance 

through powerful agrarian movements such as the 

National Association of Peasant Smallholders (ANUC) 

and the Association of Peasant, Indigenous, and AfroColombian Women of Colombia (ANMUCIC), as well 

as the emergence of some 13 guerrilla insurgencies.5

By the 1990s, five of Colombia’s insurgent groups—

the M-19, Popular Liberation Army (EPL), Revolutionary 

Workers Party (PRT), Quintín Lame Armed Movement 

(MAQL), and Socialist Renovation Current (CRS, a 

section of the National Liberation Army (ELN)—had 

signed peace agreements with the Colombian 

government. Of the 4,885 ex-combatants who demobilized from these groups, 1,183 (24.2 percent) were 

women.6 Within these groups, demobilized women 

averaged about a sixth of the CRS, a quarter of the EPL, 

and nearly a third of the M-19—although lists of the 

demobilized frequently omitted the women, particularly if they were part of the political militias and not 

turning in arms.7

Three insurgent groups remain in arms.8

 These include the largely peasant-based FARC-EP (which is 

thought to have numbered some 18,000 at its height 

and had about half that number in 2015); the more 

urban, liberation theology-inspired ELN (thought to 

be comprised of approximately 1,500 militants down 

from a high of some 5,000); and a few hundred dissidents who did not demobilize when the EPL signed 

a peace agreement in 1991, and who operate primarily 

in the Catatumbo region of the department of Norte 

de Santander. Women are said to make up about 40 

per cent of the FARC and between one-quarter and 

one-third of the ELN.9

Other armed actors in Colombia’s internal armed 

conflict have included regional paramilitary forces 

that became consolidated at the national level in 

1997 as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia 

(AUC). The AUC operated purportedly to defend 

landowners, but also as a counter-guerrilla force, 

working hand-in-glove with the Colombian military.10 Members of this paramilitary alliance have 
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 5

used “dirty war” strategies such as disappearances, 

killings, death threats, sexual violence, and social 

cleansing to intimidate social movement leaders, 

Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities, journalists, and human rights defenders, and to thwart 

political opponents.11 These armed groups were heavily financed and backed by drug-trafficking interests, 

local landowners, cattle ranchers, mining and energy 

companies, and politicians. The ties between paramilitarism, drug-trafficking, and the State in Colom 

bia have been, and remain, complex and significant. 

Between 2003 and 2006, under President Alvaro 

Uribe, the AUC demobilized some 32,000 members, 

about 10 percent of whom were female.12 The paramilitary demobilization has in turn given rise to new 

regionally based criminal bands known generically 

as bacrim (bandas criminales) that deploy paramilitary tactics of intimidation, terror, social cleansing, 

and sexual violence to prevent challenges to the status quo. These groups, including the so-called Paisas, 

Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia or Urabeños, 

the Rastrojos, Aguilas Negras, the Bloque Meta, the 

Bloque Libertadores del Vichada, and many other regional variations, were estimated in 2013 to number 

3,866 members and to operate in 167 municipalities 

throughout the country.13
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 6

The women, peace and security agenda promoted by 

UN Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) and subsequent UN resolutions recognize the links between 

gender equality and international peace and security. 

They underscore women’s capacities as peacemakers 

as well as their vulnerabilities as victims; and they 

commit member nations to advancing women’s inclusion in peace processes. Nonetheless, the realities 

of women’s experiences of Colombia’s armed conflict 

are far more complex than have been acknowledged 

by these normative frameworks. Women have played 

multiple, sometimes overlapping, roles related to war 

and peace in Colombia. Women have been peacemakers and peacebuilders, victims, change agents, and 

care providers. They have also been combatants and 

supporters of war, a status that is less publicized but 

clear when one notes the percentages of women 

assumed to participate in illegal armed groups in 

Colombia. Similarly, men have also crossed traditional 

gender divides that associate men with war and 

women with peace to become active peacemakers. 

War affects women and men in the most intimate 

aspects of their daily lives. It shapes where they 

reside, the way they dress, how they walk, where 

they travel, the crops they grow, the foods they eat, 

when and where they sleep, and how secure they 

feel.15 War experiences differ not only by gender but 

also by variables such as age, class, ethnicity, race, 

regional provenance, and religion. Acknowledging 

the gender-differential nature of women’s and 

men’s experiences as well as these multiple and 

overlapping identities—what some scholars have 

called “intersectionality”— can help illuminate 

how the experience of conflict is further shaped 

by one’s multiple identities. It also sheds light on 

women’s particular roles in conflict and peace, the 

impacts of violence on their lives, and the ways that 

cultural norms and ideas about gender contribute to 

modalities of violence. This analysis provides a basis 

for anticipating the diverse needs, interests, and 

contributions of girls, boys, women, men, and LGBTI 

individuals in a post-Accord period. 

Differential Impacts of the Conflict on Men and Women 

The Colombian armed conflict has had different effects on particular populations. These impacts vary 

by gender and sexual orientation (women, men, 

LGBTI population), age (girls, boys, adolescents, youth, 

adults), and ethnicity (indigenous, Afro-descent, native 

islander raizales, palenquero descendents of runaway 

slaves, and the gypsy population known as rrom). 

The armed conflict has affected men and women 

in different ways. It has particularly intensified the 

loss of collective lands of Colombia’s rural ethnic 

groups, increasing poverty and vulnerability for 

these groups, and, in some cases, endangering their 

cultural survival and ethnic integrity.16 In addition, 

the conflict has had particular regional inflections, 

GENDERED DIMENSIONS 

OF THE CONFLICT 

Experiences of armed conflict are infused with gender dimensions—sometimes obvious and 

more often hidden.14 Analysis of the Colombian conflict and the efforts to resolve it reveal a 

palimpsest of attitudes and social practices related to gender, many of which pre-date the 

war. Women’s experiences in Colombia have historically been marked by patterns of social 

and political exclusion, which impact gender roles and relations. In shifting contexts of war 

and peace within a particular culture, gender attributes, roles, responsibilities, and identities 

shape, and in turn, are influenced by the norms for engagement in war and peace. 
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 7

and rural and urban populations have experienced 

the war in vastly different ways. In addition, the 

National Center for Historical Memory groups the 

major impacts of armed conflict on civilians into 

four sometimes overlapping categories, namely, 

emotional and psychological damage, moral damage, political damage, and sociocultural damage.17

It documents the primary modalities of victimization employed in the last half century. These have 

included homicides (massacres, selective killings, 

and extrajudicial executions), forced disappearances, forced displacement (both within Colombia 

and beyond), kidnappings, sexual violence, torture, 

death threats and harassment, loss and destruction 

of property and goods, recruitment of minors, injury 

from land mines, and attacks on infrastructure.18

Each of these modalities of violence affects men, 

women and children in different ways.19 Males have 

been more likely than their female counterparts 

to be kidnapped, tortured, arbitrarily detained, 

and forcibly recruited by the different armed actors. Male youths constitute the majority of both 

combatants and non-combatants who have been 

killed in Colombia’s internal armed conflict, and 

account for about 95 per cent of those killed and 

injured by land mines.20 All of the civilians killed 

in what became known as the “false positives” 

scandal were young men.21 In these heinous crimes, 

Army soldiers lured thousands of young men to 

Colombian cities with offers of jobs, killed them, 

and presented them as guerrillas to inflate their 

numbers of enemy combatant casualties.

Women and girls, on the other hand, are more likely 

than their male counterparts to be subjected to 

massive displacement, sexual violence, rape, forced 

labor, forced prostitution, forced abortions, and 

enslavement. As survivors, women often assume 

new roles as widows and single heads of households, and are more likely to be the caregivers for 

those who are disabled by war, including victims of 

landmines. 

Individuals of every gender have been subjected 

to death threats, and the criminalization and 

stigmatization of their social and political activities. Human rights defenders, particularly leaders 

of women’s and LGBTI organizations, labor and 

peasant leaders, Afro-Colombian and indigenous 

leaders, journalists, magistrates, and leftist politicians are among those targeted for their work.22

The Colombian war has caused tremendous 

trauma for all, although the psychological impacts—depression, isolation, fear, anger, illness, 

grief, desperation, and fatalism—may vary by gender.23 Colombians have also experienced secondary 

traumas of the war through their relationships to 

others. This trauma can be particularly intense for 

women, who make up the majority of the survivors. 

As Ruby Castaño noted, “We women are the mothers of guerrillas, of military, of paramilitary; we are 

the origins of life.”24

As mothers, women are particularly vulnerable 

to the recruitment of their children by armed actors, particularly when the women are the sole 

heads of household.25 While cumulative statistics 

on the number of widows are not available, in the 

southwestern department of Putumayo, women’s 

groups note that one out of every 10 women is a 

widow, and 62 per cent of Putumayan women have 

lost an average of two children due to conflictrelated violence.26

Gender inequality and the accompanying social, economic, and political exclusion faced by 

women is exacerbated by membership in other 

historically disenfranchised sectors. Indigenous 

and Afro-Colombian women and girls are at particular risk for poverty, displacement, violations of 

their collective and individual rights, and sexual 

violence.27 The National Organization of Indigenous 

Colombians (ONIC) reported that an increased military presence, such as when soldiers are brought 

in to protect mega-projects in or near indigenous 

territories, generates a surge in violent conflict 

that has a particular impact on indigenous girls 

and women, including through a rise in prostitution, unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted 

diseases and sexual violence.28 The Inter-American 

Commission on Human Rights reported that all 

parties to the armed conflict inflict sexual violence 

upon indigenous Colombian women as a method 

of warfare.29
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 8

Gendered Impacts of Displacement 

Of 5,859,075 displaced persons registered with the 

national victims’ unit in 2015, 39 per cent were women, 

35 per cent were men, 20 per cent were boys under 

18 years of age, and 19 per cent were girls.30 Women 

and children constitute 78 per cent of Colombia’s IDP 

population, and a disproportionate number of the IDP 

population is Afro-Colombian or indigenous.31

Some 97 per cent of all IDPs live under the poverty 

line without access to basic services including health, 

security, justice, and education. They are at high risk 

for disease, malnutrition, and violation of their basic 

human rights. Driven from their lands by massacres, 

selective killings, death threats, and sexual violence, displaced women frequently are, or become, sole heads of 

the household, and must find ways to recompose their 

lives and their futures. In their new locations, displaced 

women are exposed to further risk of sexual violence 

and are often targeted for exercising leadership in their 

communities.32 Their children face increased exposure 

to forced recruitment by illegal armed actors as well.33

While forced displacement affects boys, girls, adolescents, adults, women, ethnic groups, and the disabled 

in differential ways, it places a particularly heavy 

burden on women and on ethnic communities.34 Poor, 

rural women are especially vulnerable as they often 

lack land titles or collective rights to property.35 In recent 

years, women who defend their lands, resist displacement, or seek to return to their appropriated lands have 

been subject to particular attack.36 Likewise, displacement of Afro-Colombian and indigenous women has 

an added spiritual and cultural element, given the 

centrality of land in their cosmovisions. In some cases, 

displacement exacerbates the possibility of the group’s 

cultural extinction.37

Sexual and Gender-Based Violence

Sexual and gender-based violence is one of the most 

extreme expressions of structural violence against 

women, and forms part of a continuum of violence and 

power that predates the armed conflict. Gender-based 

violence both reflects and perpetuates structural inequalities and its pervasiveness is only beginning to 

be recognized.38 The full magnitude of the problem is 

not known. One study by Oxfam-International found 

that nearly half a million women and girls in Colombia 

had experienced sexual and gender-based violence, a 

small fraction of the numbers documented in official 

statistics.39 Thousands of cases of domestic violence 

are reported in Colombia each year; many more are 

not.40 Marital rape and abuse is common and widely 

tolerated.41 High levels of impunity discourage women 

from coming forward to denounce violence. For boys 

and men, the social taboos against reporting sexual 

violence are fierce. Silence tends to be the norm, and 

the tendency for underreporting sexual violence cannot be understated. Consequently, it is difficult to 

measure and address the magnitude of the problem. 

The institutional capacity for addressing sexual 

violence is likewise inadequate.42 Those who seek 

medical support or report abuse to authorities risk 

further abuse and degrading treatment by medical 

practitioners and police, who often lack training in 

established protocols.43 Sexual violence against males 

and gender-based violence more broadly has received 

little attention from the academic community, the 

policy-making community, or from the wider public. 

Furthermore, there is a tremendous knowledge gap 

surrounding the issue of children born of conflictrelated sexual violence, and even less public policy to 

address the needs of these children.44

Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in a Context of War

War exacerbates pre-existing patterns of discrimination and violence against women. In addition, sexual 

and gender-based violence impacts the shape of the 

war itself. Sexual violence or the threat of sexual 

violence have been prime drivers of displacement 

in Colombia’s internal armed conflict. One UNHCR 

report in 2011 found that 17.7 per cent of the IDPs 

questioned fled their homes because of sexual violence; an Oxfam study found that two of every ten 

internally displace women surveyed had fled because 
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 9

of sexual violence.45 Similarly, intra-familial violence 

as well as restrictive gender roles have caused youth 

to join armed groups. 

 Conflict-related sexual violence refers to “rape, 

sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, 

enforced sterilization and other forms of sexual 

violence of comparable gravity perpetrated against 

women, men, girls or boys that is linked, directly or 

indirectly (temporally, geographically or causally) to 

a conflict.”46 Conflict-related sexual violence affects 

not only the survivors, but their families and their 

communities as well.47 In Colombia, women and girls 

constitute some four-fifths of the victims of sexual 

violence officially registered with the government.48 

Men and boys represent almost a fifth of the victims 

of sexual violence. The vast majority of both male and 

female survivors of sexual violence are minors.49

Colombia’s Constitutional Court found in 2008, that 

sexual violence against women has been “a habitual, 

extensive, systematic and invisible practice in the context of the Colombian armed conflict.”50 Subsequently, 

Colombia’s Attorney General, the Comptroller 

General, and the Armed Forces took measures to address the issue, and particularly, to improve women’s 

access to justice in cases of conflict-related sexual 

violence.51 Still, the Constitutional Court has found 

repeatedly that sexual violence has continued to be 

a risk for women in the context of the armed conflict 

and forced displacement, and that the State should 

take further legal measures to guarantee women’s 

rights and reverse practices of impunity.52

All of Colombia’s armed actors have engaged in sexual 

violence against women, but the practice of conflictrelated sexual violence nonetheless differs by armed 

group, by region, and by context.53 Understanding 

these variations and the goals, policy and practice of 

each armed group engaged in violence is an important element for addressing sexual crimes against 

women. 

Post-demobilization groups and other local armed 

elements are as the primary perpetrators of these 

crimes, followed by guerrilla groups (FARC and ELN), 

and then by members of the Colombian armed 

forces, according to the Office of the Ombudsman.54

These paramilitary successor groups are increasingly 

attacking women leaders and human rights defenders, especially those working with forcibly displaced 

communities, campaigning for land restitution, or 

representing survivors of conflict-related sexual 

violence.55 These threats appear to be of a more 

political nature, often explicitly related to women’s 

gender and transgression of traditional gender roles. 

Likewise, because of their gender, women living near 

illegal mining settlements under the control of armed 

groups face heightened risk to sexual exploitation, 

forced prostitution and trafficking.56

Extensive documentation exists of the repertoires 

of sexual violence used first by the AUC paramilitaries (sometimes in complicity or with acquiescence 

of State security forces) and then by their successor 

groups in regions across the country, particularly in 

the departments of the North Atlantic and Pacific 

coasts. The patterns share some commonalities, 

including the goal of expanding and consolidating 

power by terrorizing communities. In nine of the 

worst massacres committed by paramilitaries, sexual 

violence against women was deployed.57

 In the department of Norte de Santander, Salvatore 

Mancuso, a member of the central command of the 

AUC and commander of the Bloque Catatumbo (part 

of the Northern Bloc), mapped out a strategy to control and occupy the department based on a campaign 

of terror that included massacres, dismemberment, 

torture, and sexual violence.58 In the departments of 

Cesar and Magdalena, paramilitaries in the fronts under the leadership of “Jorge 40,” used sexual violence 

to expel the local population from their lands and to 

punish women who challenged their orders.59 They 

beat and otherwise psychologically and physically 

abused women known to be the girlfriends or partners of guerrillas. Their abuse included multiple group 

rapes that often led to pregnancies, and the kidnapping of young girls who they kept in farmhouses for 

months at a time as sexual slaves. Jorge 40’s troops 

also used sexual violence to obtain information from 

girls and women they accused of being guerrillas.60

In the Alta Guajira region of northeastern Colombia, 

the Wayúu Counterinsurgency Front of the Northern 

Bloc of the Colombian Self-Defense Forces (AUC) carried out a massacre in 2004 in Bahía Portete, where 
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 10

they targeted indigenous Wayúu matriarchs who 

were defending indigenous territorial autonomy and 

challenging paramilitary dominance in the region.61

The Front inflicted tremendous cultural and moral 

damage on the Wayúu, shooting the men, and decapitating the women and slashing their breasts.62

In the neighboring department of Sierra Nevada de 

Santa Marta, Hernán Giraldo (‘El Patrón’), head of an 

AUC successor group called the Bloque Resistencia 

Tayrona, used selective assassinations and sexual 

violence against impoverished young girls to consolidate his control over basic services, movement, and 

infrastructure. Giraldo maintained his control of the 

region with the complicity of the girls’ parents, who 

turned over their adolescent daughters in exchange 

for favors, loans, payment, work, or protection.63

In the Urabá region in Colombia’s western departments of Antioquia and Chocó, Dairo Antonio 

úsuga David, alias ‘Otoniel,’ and other members of the 

Urabeños have recruited and sexually abused dozens 

of impoverished 12-14 year-old girls with the assistance of a female recruiter.64 The Urabeños ply the 

girls with gifts, pay for them to have breast implants 

and liposuction, and require them to take emergency 

contraception or have an abortion if they become 

pregnant. They also give favors and jobs to the girls’ 

families.65 These measures not only serve the sexual 

desires of the paramilitaries, but also secure the support of these impoverished communities and help to 

solidify support for the paramilitary presence in the 

region. The Urabeños were recently found buying girls 

from criminal networks that control prostitution in 

Medellín and Cartagena to serve as sex slaves in rural 

mining areas in other parts of the country.66

Further down the Pacific coast, in Buenaventura, a 

largely Afro-Colombian port city with some of the 

highest levels of violence and displacement in the 

country, armed groups fighting each other for territorial control rape, torture, and kill women and youth to 

demonstrate their power and as retribution against 

rival groups.67

Paramilitary bosses manipulated gender norms to 

their advantage in more subtle ways as well, consolidating control by re-signifying festivals, religious 

celebrations, and sporting events. Marco Tulio Pérez 

Guzmán (alias ‘el Oso’), the paramilitary commander 

of the Heroes of Montes de María Bloc, used the local custom of beauty contests to identify the most 

beautiful virgins in the Montes de María region, and 

hand-selected from these young girls for his pleasure 

and use.68

Armed groups fight each other for territory, transportation corridors, and illicit crops. In many regions 

where the State has been historically absent, armed 

groups have served as its proxy, providing basic services, mediating conflicts, and setting the rules and 

social codes by which communities live. Their control 

also extends to the regulation of gender relations and 

the population’s sexuality and affective relations.

Across the North Atlantic coastal region, paramilitaries punished those who challenged patriarchal 

norms with penalties that were differentiated by 

gender. Girls and women who engaged in behaviors 

considered to depart from appropriate female roles, 

such as being ‘bad neighbors’, ‘bad partners’ or ‘bad 

girls,’ were subject to public shaming, forced domestic 

labor, and enslavement.69 Men and boys who engaged in what paramilitary considered ‘undesirable 

masculinities’—like stealing, using drugs, hunting 

prohibited animals, or carrying sexually-transmitted 

diseases—could be punished with torture, homicide 

or forced disappearance.70

In the Putumayo department in southwestern 

Colombia, paramilitary groups established two different sets of codes of behavior and dress for women 

that differentiated between appropriate norms for 

‘decent’ and ‘indecent’ women. If women transgress 

the particular gender-defined roles they have been 

assigned (i.e., as mothers or as prostitutes), they could 

be subjected to hard labor, sexual slavery, forced 

domestic service, forced disappearance, torture, and 

even death.71

Likewise, in the Putumayo region, the FARC established regulations that reinforce traditional gender 

roles with a different dimension. There, FARC militants 

mediate disputes between couples, and set strict protective standards of behavior, including sanctions and 

even death for men who beat their wives or commit 

rape.72
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 11

In general, unlike the paramilitary militias, the FARC 

has not used sexual violence against women as a 

means of exercising territorial control and FARC regulations prohibit rape and overt sexual harassment.73

There are nonetheless reports of the use of sexual 

violence to forcibly recruit girls and women, and 

male FARC commanders reportedly abuse their positions of authority to form sexual liaisons with young 

girls.74 In addition, the FARC and other insurgent 

groups violate women’s sexual and reproductive 

rights by imposing and enforcing strict regulations 

regarding female sexuality and reproductive behavior on their members.75 The insurgents encourage 

family planning and prohibit pregnancy. “Girls as 

young as twelve are required to use contraception, 

and must have abortions if they get pregnant,” notes 

Human Rights Watch.76 The Ministry of Defense reported that 43 of 244 demobilized female fighters 

stated they had been forced to have abortions.77

Demobilizing female FARC ex-combatants confirm 

the FARC practice of forced abortions, which FARC 

leadership cites as necessary during wartime, and 

part of the code of rules agreed to upon joining the 

insurgency.78 Restrictions over sexuality and reproductive rights however sometimes motivate women 

to leave armed groups. 

State security forces have also been found responsible 

for crimes of sexual violence against women. In July 

2010, the Colombian government issued Directive 11, 

which outlined its official policy of zero tolerance for 

sexual violence against women. The Human Rights 

Ombudsman found nonetheless in Cartagena that 

State security forces have engaged in ‘a generalized 

practice’ of sexual abuse that “takes advantage of 

the conditions of subordination of women, their 

precarious economic conditions resulting from lack 

of protection by the State, and the acceptance of 

existing ideas in the local culture, such as a woman’s 

body is an object that belongs to men.”79 The UN 

Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Sexual 

Violence in Conflict and the UN Office of the High 

Commissioner for Human Rights have urged the 

government to sanction violators and to enforce 

the policy more effectively.80 While the Ministry of 

Defense suggests that the cases of sexual violence 

are isolated cases of opportunistic behavior, human 

rights groups and women’s organizations link sexual 

violence by the security forces to military strategies 

that stigmatize civilians as guerrilla collaborators and 

seek control of populations and territory through the 

abuse of power; they underscore the gravity of such 

crimes, which they consider to be crimes against 

humanity, given the particular responsibility of the 

public security forces to protect the population and 

prevent such violence.81

Government structures and protocols can contribute to the problem. In one report on the 

implementation of Security Council Resolution 1820, 

the UN Secretary-General identified three common 

factors that contribute to and exacerbate sexual 

violence, namely, inadequate measures to prevent 

sexual violence and protect civilians; inadequate 

measures to combat impunity for sexual violence; 

and inadequate measures to address continuing 

discrimination against women and girls, in law and 

practice.82 In Order 092 (2008), the Constitutional 

Court forwarded 183 prioritized cases of sexual 

violence to the Comptroller General for accelerated 

prosecution. Of those cases where the perpetrator 

was identified, 58 percent were paramilitaries, 23 

percent were government security forces, and 8 

percent of those indicted were guerrillas. Five years 

later, violators had been convicted in only three 

cases—a 98.8 per cent rate of impunity. 
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 12

Colombia is a pioneer in legislation and jurisprudence with respect to women’s rights and, more 

recently, in developing a comprehensive approach 

to addressing violence against women. On paper, 

women in Colombia enjoy a broad range of rights 

that have been the product of decades of struggle. 

The 1991 Constitution and subsequent legislation 

and judicial findings recognize women’s rights, penalize violence against women and gender-based 

violence, guarantee women’s political participation 

and leadership roles in peacemaking and peacebuilding, provide equal access to State resources for 

women, and guarantee women’s relief and recovery 

from the conflict.86

Colombian laws on violence against women are 

consistent with its international obligations in forums such as the United Nations and Organization 

of American States (OAS). Law 248 (1995) obligates 

the Colombian State, as a signatory to the OAS 

Inter-American Convention to Prevent, Sanction and 

Eliminate Violence against Women, to reduce and 

eliminate violence against women. Law 294 (1996) 

characterizes domestic violence as a crime. Law 599 

(2000) assigns penalties for sexual violence, and Law 

882 (2004) increases those sentences for physical 

and psychological violence against women. Law 1413 

(2010) recognizes women’s contributions to unpaid 

work, and economic and social development.87 Law 

1257 (2008), promulgated in 2011, is comprehensive 

in scope across the judicial, health, education and 

labor sectors and guarantees women a life free of 

violence.88 In 2009, Colombia became subject to 

the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court 

whose Rome Statute is the first international instrument explicitly to consider as war crimes and crimes 

against humanity sexual and gender-based crimes—

including persecution based on gender, as well as 

rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced 

pregnancy, enforced sterilization, and other forms of 

sexual violence.89

The Colombian State has designed a progressive 

normative framework for gender equality and its 

National Policy for Comprehensive Gender Equity 

(2012) promises greater attention to violence prevention and the needs of victims of sexual violence.90

Colombia is also crafting innovative reparations for 

women victims. The Victims and Land Restitution 

Law (2011, Art. 114-18) establishes preferential treatment for women seeking restitution after having 

been expelled from their lands and provides specific 

reparations for women and girl survivors of sexual 

violence.91 Increasingly those seeking to reclaim their 

lands are calling for a rights-based, as opposed to a 

paternalistic, approach to reparations.92

ADDRESSING GENDERBASED VIOLENCE 

THROUGH GENDER 

EQUALITY AND POLITICAL 

PARTICIPATION

Increasingly, research is showing strong correlations between peace, security, and a society’s 

treatment of women. More than levels of wealth, democracy, or ethno-religious factors, the 

best predictor of a state’s peacefulness and stability is how well it treats its women.85
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 13

Law 1719 (June 2014) improves women’s access to justice, 

provides protection for survivors of conflict-based sexual 

violence, holds that sexual violence can be considered 

a crime against humanity, and expands the range of 

punishable offenses in the Penal Code.93 Decree 1480 

(October 2014) established May 25th as a national day 

of dignity for women victims of sexual violence and 

commits the Colombian government to give an annual 

accounting every May 25th of advances it has made in 

terms of truth, justice and reparations for victims of 

sexual violence. The decree fulfilled the collective reparations solicited by journalist Jineth Bedoya, a victim of 

sexual violence of paramilitary groups.94

In Colombia, then, progressive legislation, judicial decisions, and executive decrees back women’s rights and 

promise to address sexual and gender-based violence. 

Nonetheless, centuries of structural discrimination, 

mistreatment, and gender-based violence, have been 

exacerbated by a history of colonialism, racism, homophobia, and poverty. Elite political culture is marked 

by practices of exclusion and indifference to women’s 

contributions. Strong cultural expectations that women’s place is in the home prevail. Patriarchal attitudes 

that position women as inferior to men, discriminatory 

practices of exclusion and mistreatment of women, 

and entrenched gender stereotypes and roles continue 

to be strong barriers to equality. 

Overcoming this legacy has proven difficult so far. 

In practice, Colombian women have yet to achieve 

full political participation and economic equality.95

While at the national level, Colombian law mandates that 30 percent of the Cabinet-level posts be 

filled by women, female elected representation remains relatively low. Colombia ranks 70th out of 190 

countries in terms of female political representation in the Congress.96 In Colombia’s Congressional 

elections in March 2014, women secured 33 seats 

(19 per cent) in the House of Representatives, and 23 

seats (22.5 per cent) in the Senate, which was close 

to the global average, but under the regional average for the Americas.97 At the local level, Colombian 

women are dismally underrepresented. In 2013, 

they held 9.8 per cent of the mayoral seats, and 6.25 

per cent of the governorships, and there were no 

women elected at all at the mayoral or gubernatorial level in the departments of Amazonas, Arauca, 

Guaviare, Guainía, Putumayo, Vaupés and Vichada.98

Furthermore, ethnic and gender considerations, as 

well as lack of access to resources and educational 

opportunities (particularly in the rural areas), combine to create seemingly insurmountable barriers 

to the participation of Afro-Colombian and indigenous women in national, regional and municipal 

elected offices.99

Impacts of the Colombian Conflict on LGBTI Persons100

The legal recognition of the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) individuals is 

relatively recent in Colombia. Beginning with the 1991 

Constitution and with numerous advances spearheaded by the Constitutional Court, Colombia has 

taken significant steps forward.101 However, gender 

discrimination and prejudicial attitudes toward LGBTI 

persons, especially trans women, remain deep-seated, 

sometimes exacerbated by poverty and ethnicity.

In the context of the internal armed conflict, intolerance for gender diversity in Colombia has been life 

threatening. LGBTI persons have been persecuted, 

attacked, threatened, forcibly displaced, or killed 

as a result of their gender identity and sexual 

orientation.102 Sexual violence against LGBTI individuals is sometimes inflicted as a form of “corrective 

violence” or social cleansing, and often forces the 

displacement of the subjects of such violence, disproportionately affecting ethnic minorities in rural 

areas.103 The Victims’ Unit, which in 2011, created a 

classification in its registry of victims that allowed 

for the identification of sexual orientation, has begun reparations processes for 518 LGBTI persons.104

These numbers undoubtedly are low, given widespread social prejudices and stigmatization against 

those who self-identify as LGBTI persons. About 

half of those registered are transgender, the most 

vulnerable of the LGBTI population; one-third of the 

registered victims are gay; one-tenth are lesbian; and 

just under five per cent are bisexuals.105

Types of victimizations of LGBTI persons vary, and 

displacement is the most commonly reported 
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 14

violation. Of the total LGBTI victims registered, 70 per 

cent report forced displacement from their homes by 

armed groups, 12 per cent have been intimidated and 

received death threats, 8.91 per cent have lost a family 

member to homicide, and 2.71 per cent have suffered 

from a terrorist act. Nine LGBTI persons have been 

sexually abused and five were forcibly disappeared.106

An undocumented number of LGBTI individuals have 

committed suicide as a result of being persecuted.107

Armed groups sometimes target LGBTI persons and 

leaders of organizations that educate and defend their 

rights, like Caribe Afirmativo and Colombia Diversa.108

Transgender women in Colombia face particularly 

severe discrimination by State and private actors in accessing health, education, and government services.109

The manipulation of gender norms and ‘social 

cleansing’ operations conducted by the paramilitary 

AUC and its successor organizations have affected 

LGBTI individuals in particularly insidious ways, often 

making communities complicit in the physical and 

emotional persecution against homosexuals and 

other LGBTI individuals who fail to conform to traditional gender stereotypes.110

In one particularly grotesque incident, a paramilitary 

commander organized two days of boxing matches 

in May 2003 in the largely Afro-Colombian town of 

San Onofre, a town known for producing three world 

boxing champions. There the commander forced 16 

gay youths, under threat of death, to fight each other 

in the boxing ring or to leave town. The matches 

proved traumatic for the gay participants, who were 

roundly ridiculed and humiliated by the townspeople; several of the youth were forced to abandon the 

town and at least one committed suicide.111

Impacts of the Colombian Conflict on Girls, Boys, and Adolescents

In addition to its differential impact on women, men, 

and LGBTI persons, Colombia’s armed conflict has 

had particular effects on girls, boys, and youths. In 

the last decade, international protections and norms, 

including a range of UN resolutions such as UNSCR 

1612 (2005) and 1882 (2009), have sought to institute 

greater protections for children in the context of 

armed conflict and to document and address the use 

of child soldiers.112

The rules defining minors are contradictory. 

International humanitarian law permits the recruitment of children at age 15, but the Optional Protocol 

to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (2000), 

ratified by Colombia in 2005, sets the standard at 

18 years of age.113 Illegal recruitment of minors carries a 6-10 year jail sentence under Colombian law, 

and is prohibited by the Geneva Conventions, the 

Statute of Rome, and the International Convention 

of Human Rights.114

Within and against those norms, each of Colombia’s 

armed groups sets its own policy and practice. Since 

1982, FARC regulations have limited youth recruitment to those between 15-30 years of age. In the 

context of the peace process, on February 12, 2015, 

the FARC raised its minimum recruitment age by two 

years to 17 years of age, and, one year later, to 18 years 

of age.115 Until 1996, when it increased its official 

minimum age for recruitment to 16, the ELN allowed 

children under 15 to participate in ‘revolutionary 

activities’ but not ‘hostilities.’116 Colombian military 

service is obligatory for all males and begins at age 

18, though recently new provisions were promoted 

to respect the rights of conscientious objectors.117

In Colombia, young people fight on all sides of the 

war.118 Children and adolescents, particularly in some 

coca-growing regions, such as Putumayo, are at high 

risk of forced recruitment.119 Almost half of FARC 

members are said to have been recruited at a young 

age. A study done by Human Rights Watch in 2003 put 

the total number of child soldiers in FARC, ELN, and 

paramilitary AUC conservatively at 11,000 youth.120

Much of what we know about youth recruits comes 

from those who have left armed groups. Between 

1999 and January of 2015, the Colombian Institute for 

Family Welfare (Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar 

Familiar/ICBF), the government entity responsible 

for serving the needs of minors who leave the war 

(desvinculados), served 5,708 minors; 277 of these 

children demobilized in 2014 alone.121 Twenty-nine 

per cent of the demobilized children were girls, and 

the remaining 71 per cent were boys.122 According to 

ICBF, 60 per cent of the minors had left the FARC, 20 
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 15

per cent had been with the paramilitary AUC, 15 per 

cent were with the ELN, and just under 5 per cent 

demobilized from criminal bands.123 By May 1, 2015, 

7,750 individuals had registered with the government’s victims’ unit as victims of forced recruitment 

by armed actors.124

Reasons for joining armed groups—and for leaving them—are infused with gender dimensions. 

Domestic and intra-familial violence is one of the 

leading push factors that cause both girls and boys 

to leave home to join armed groups and gangs.125

Push and pull factors for joining these groups can 

differ for boys and girls, however, motivations may 

vary for joining different groups as well. For boys, 

joining armed groups—both the military as well as 

illegal armed groups—provides one of the few rites 

of passage available for marking the transition into 

manhood. Participation in armed groups offers boys 

opportunities to earn income, independence, and 

status, as well as to gain access to education, food, 

camaraderie, and recognition.126

Girls respond to an overlapping set of push and 

pull factors. Domestic abuse and the lack of meaningful options for girls are among the main push 

factors women cite for joining the FARC.127 Girls in 

some regions join the insurgency as an alternative to prostitution or coca production.128 For some 

girls, joining an armed group has provided a way 

to break with restrictive gender expectations, and 

offered new leadership opportunities that were 

not accessible in the broader Colombian society.129

Other pull factors for girls include educational opportunities. One FARC commander told me that she 

wanted to join the FARC at age 13 in order to learn 

to read, but the FARC told her she had to wait until 

she was 14.130

Since peace talks between the Colombian government 

and the FARC began in 2012, criminal bands have surpassed the FARC as the main recruiter of minors; half of 

bacrim members are under age 18. The Defensoría del 

Pueblo calls bacrim “the primary risk factor for recruitment and illicit use of boys, girls, and adolescents.”131

The office has documented situations of risk of childhood recruitment in 26 of Colombia’s 32 departments. 

Of the 138 cases where the recruiting group is known, 

65 are former paramilitaries, 51 cases are FARC, and 22 

are cases of risk of recruitment by the ELN.132

Once they join the ranks of an armed group, youth, particularly girls and young women, are often entrapped 

in high-risk activities, including illicit drug and arms 

trafficking, human trafficking, prostitution, and illegal 

mining operations. Youth, especially impoverished 

rural peasants with few economic alternatives, provide 

illegal armed groups with a vulnerable work force in 

all phases of drug trafficking including illicit crop cultivation, cocaine production, and distribution of drugs. 

They are charged with harvesting coca leaves in fields 

that are often planted with landmines to discourage 

manual eradication. Girls and women often smuggle 

coca paste or cocaine—hidden in the most inner recesses of their bodies—across the border at great risk 

to their health and lives.133

The overlap of age and gender makes young girls particularly vulnerable in the newly emerging conflicts 

around illegal mining operations. The UN SecretaryGeneral’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence 

in Conflict, Zainab Hawa Bangura, visited Colombia 

in 2015 and found that members of non-State armed 

groups and criminal gangs are forcibly recruiting 12-15 

year old children to serve as sex workers for mining operations and replacing them with other children when 

they become ‘too used’ or ‘too sick’.134

Furthermore, sexual exploitation of girls is taking on 

new forms. In the port city of Buenaventura and the 

western department of Risaralda, ‘express kidnappings’ of young girls were recently documented by the 

Defensoría del Pueblo.135 In this phenomenon, illegal 

groups kidnap girls and adolescents for a few hours at 

a time for the purpose of sexual exploitation. 

Boys, girls, and adolescents in Colombia suffer the 

ravages of war in an abundance of other ways, both 

directly and indirectly. They are killed by clashes between armed actors and killed or crippled for life by 

landmines.136 Colombian children suffer directly when 

their parents or relatives are killed or threatened, or 

when their families and communities are displaced. 

An untold number of children are born of sexual violence, and many are sexually abused themselves. All of 

these groups suffer rejection and stigmatization by the 

broader Colombian society. 
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 16

Both the State and family members often fail to protect 

children or have shown themselves unable to do so. 

While schools should provide safe spaces for education, 

as a result of the war, classes are often suspended, buildings are destroyed and used for military purposes, and 

armed groups sometimes threaten or attack teachers.137

The Colombian Ministry of Defense has engaged children in civic-military activities in violation of the Child 

Protection Code (Law 1098 of 2006).138 Overall there is 

widespread impunity for violations against children.139

Children are both victims of war and, as soldiers of the 

State and as participants in insurgencies and other 

illegal armed groups, perpetrators of war. Although beyond the scope of this paper, recent UN Security Council 

resolution 2250, adopted unanimously in December 

2015, begins to open the door to thinking about youth 

not merely as victims and perpetrators of violence, 

but also as a key part of the solution.140 The resolution underscores the critical role of youth as agents of 

change in the prevention and resolution of conflict. In 

Colombia, those under the age of fifty have yet to know 

peace in their lifetimes, but they are the generation of 

hope who will be called on to break the cycle of conflict. 

There is an urgent need to do psychosocial work and 

undertake peace pedagogies with young people in 

order to break these generational patterns of hatred 

and vengeance.141 Some youths have already begun 

embarking on this path.142
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 17

Only a handful of women have been engaged as negotiators at Colombia’s peace tables. In the years from 

1990-1994, the Colombian government signed peace 

accords with the EPL, PRT, MAQL and CRS and carried 

out dialogues with the Communist Party and the Simón 

Bolívar Coordinating Group.143 In agreements reached 

with these groups, only one women guerrilla was a signatory; the remaining signatories—including negotiators, 

witnesses, and guarantors—were all men.144 Likewise, 

women were absent from the talks that led to the demobilization of the paramilitary AUC in 2004.145 In the 

various talks and exploratory dialogues with the ELN that 

took place from 2005-7 or in the current ones taking place 

since 2013, women have had virtually no visible role.146

Similarly, in the four sets of peace talks between 

the Colombian government and the FARC over the 

course of the last three decades, few women have 

been given seats at the table. In the last peace talks 

with the FARC from 1998-2002, the government of 

President Andrés Pastrana named María Emma 

Mejía as one of its principal negotiators; she was a 

signatory on several accords reached during those 

talks.147 Furthermore, an important role tangential to 

the table opened when the negotiating team named 

Ana Teresa Bernal, former director of REDEPAZ, to 

coordinate the thematic committees to channel civil 

society inputs into the process.148

Mejía and Bernal used their positions to open the 

process to more women. They urged the FARC to 

incorporate a woman on their team as well, and the 

FARC soon named Mariana Páez to their negotiating team.149 Together, the women organized a public 

hearing on economy and employment. Six hundred 

women, representing a vast spectrum of Colombian 

society, participated in the hearing, which took place at 

the site of the talks in Caguán on June 25, 2000, coordinated by REDEPAZ, the National Network of Women 

(Red Nacional de Mujeres), and the Association of 

Indigenous, Afro-Colombian, and Peasant Women of 

Colombia (ANMUCIC). The main goals of the hearing 

were to give visibility to gender inequality, to demand 

women’s representation at the peace table, and to 

give the women’s movement a role in the negotiating 

process.150 The meetings delivered on the first goal of 

making the issue of gender inequality more visible. 

Securing a greater role for women and the women’s 

movement in the peace process however proved difficult in the short term, as high-level government 

authorities did not even attend the hearings. While 

the hearing and women’s engagement in it demonstrated the tremendous depth, diversity and convening 

capacity of women and introduced new forms of mobilization marked by ritual, symbolism, and creativity, 

the peace talks themselves were already entering into 

crisis and new resources from Plan Colombia would 

favor a military solution in Colombia.151

Other developments in the international sphere 

would nonetheless provide Colombian women with 

supportive new frameworks for their peacemaking 

efforts. With the passage of UN Security Council 

Resolution 1325 (2000), the Colombian government 

WOMEN AND COLOMBIAN 

PEACE PROCESSES

Colombia has experienced numerous peace processes, some of which resulted in the demobilization or disarmament of armed groups. Other peace processes, particularly with the FARC 

and the ELN, have been incomplete. In past peace processes in Colombia, women have rarely 

held roles on negotiating teams, yet with each new process they have built on what came 

before, found ways to pressure for their interests and influence the process, and gotten closer 

and closer to the peace table.
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 18

took on the three-fold commitment to “the prevention of violent conflict, the protection of all civilians, 

and the participation of women in conflict prevention, resolution and peacebuilding,” and Colombian 

women sought to hold them accountable to their 

international commitment.

In a new post-1325 context, Colombian women established the Women’s Initiative for Peace (Iniciativa 

de Mujeres por la Paz) and coalitions like the “1325 

Coalition” and worked to ensure women a place at 

future peace tables.152 They secured inclusion in the 

National Development Plan of a provision requiring 

“the promotion of direct and autonomous participation of women’s organizations in different national 

and local dialogues and political negotiation processes related to social and armed conflicts.”153

Peacebuilding In the Midst of War

When peace talks between the Pastrana government 

and the FARC finally collapsed on February 20, 2002, 

disillusionment was widespread. Presidential elections shortly thereafter ushered in Alvaro Uribe on 

campaign promises to defeat the guerrillas militarily. Those who continued to favor peaceful solutions 

were widely dismissed as guerrilla-sympathizers.

Many women’s organizations nonetheless continued 

to insist on the need to find political solutions and to 

prepare the ground once again for future negotiations. 

In the absence of peace talks, they worked quietly in 

the regions to address the growing violence, and they 

organized regional and massive national marches to 

keep their demands for peace in the public eye.154

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Colombia 

topped the charts as the most dangerous place in the 

world to be a journalist, labor leader, or a human rights 

defender. Women documented, publicized, and denounced the increase in human rights violations under 

President Alvaro Uribe’s ‘democratic security’ program. 

They challenged the broader costs of militarization and 

budget priorities that favored defense and security at 

the expense of other social needs. Using their socially 

sanctioned roles as mothers, women were well placed 

to critique the lack of jobs and opportunities that left 

youth vulnerable to recruitment by the armed groups, 

prostitution, and drugs; and they sought solutions to 

the problems presented by Colombia’s illicit economies. In the coca-growing region of Putumayo, which 

was the target zone for Plan Colombia, women called 

for alternative development options and charged that 

the aerial fumigation of illicit crops was destroying 

food crops as well as coca crops, and contributing to 

greater poverty and hunger.155

Women have sought to keep the plight of victims 

and the impact of the war on civilian populations 

in the public eye and to build support for a negotiated settlement and to “humanize” the war. The IMP 

and ASFAMIPAZ developed a campaign known as 

‘Operation Sirirí’ to pressure the government and the 

armed actors to seek humanitarian agreements with 

the insurgents. Relatives of those who were kidnapped 

and held by guerrilla insurgents have traveled around 

the world seeking the release of their loved ones.157

Ruta Pacífica supported the diplomatic efforts of 

Senator Piedad Córdoba to lobby for a humanitarian 

accord, a role that was consecrated by President Uribe 

who appointed her to facilitate an accord in 2008. 

Córdoba played a critical and widely unrecognized 

role in opening communications between the FARC, 

civil society, and the government in search of a political solution to the conflict. She facilitated the release 

of more than a dozen hostages, gradually helping to 

build the confidence needed for the peace talks that 

were launched in 2012. 

At the regional level, the Pacific Route of Women (Ruta 

Pacífica de la Mujer) and the Women’s Association of 

Eastern Antioquia (Asociación de Mujeres del Oriente 

Antioqueño/AMOR) negotiated local-level ceasefires 

that held for several months in a limited area. Women, 

particularly women of a variety of faith traditions, played 

a quiet but significant role in mediating conflicts in 

their communities. In Arauca, Sur de Bolívar, Putumayo, 

Cauca, Montes de María, Magdalena Medio, Antioquia, 

and throughout the country, women dialogued directly 

with armed groups to secure the release of hostages, to 

prevent violence and displacement, to recover children 

recruited by the armed actors, to protect their communities, and to secure basic necessities.158 They navigated 
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 19

their way through occupied territories and persuaded 

the insurgents to lift road blockades and to allow the 

passage of food, medicine, and people through insurgent, paramilitary, and military checkpoints.

Women have increasingly articulated the particular 

impacts of the war on children, women, and more 

recently, LGBTI persons. They have raised awareness about the extent of sexual and gender-based 

violence and its impact on the victims, their families, 

and their communities. In their efforts, women have 

both contributed to and drawn on international 

human rights and international humanitarian law, 

as well as the norms, conventions, and laws favoring women’s rights. In addition, women’s groups 

have increasingly sought to create global alliances 

and engage international support in their struggle. 

Colombian women pressured for and obtained visits 

to investigate women’s rights in Colombia by UN 

Special Rapporteur Radhika Coomaraswamy (2001), 

and the Inter-American Commission on Human 

Rights (Susana Villarán, 2005). They participate 

regularly in hearings of the Inter-American Court for 

Human Rights, the Inter-American Commission on 

Human Rights and the Inter-American Commission 

for Women at the Organization of American States, 

as well as the Committee on the Elimination of 

Discrimination against Women (the treaty body for 

the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of 

Discrimination Against Women) and other mechanisms available to them at the United Nations.159 They 

also worked to secure the 2012 visit to Colombia of 

Margot Wallström, the then UN Secretary-General’s 

Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict. 

Women and the Peace Talks with the FARC

President Juan Manuel Santos assumed office in 

August 2010, promising that he held the key to peace 

and would use them when the moment was propitious. 

Following a year-and-a half of quiet confidence-building measures and six months of secret exploratory 

talks in Cuba, the newly elected president and FARC 

leader Rodrigo Londoño (aka Timoleón Jiménez, aka 

“Timochenko”) announced that the Colombian government and the FARC would begin peace talks in October 

2012—the first attempt in more than a decade.160

When the peace table was launched in Norway as 

announced, men occupied all of the seats, with the 

exception of the one held by the Norwegian moderator. Formal talks opened in Cuba the following month. 

Each side was permitted up to ten negotiators, including five “plenipotentiaries” with full negotiating power, 

and a team of up to 30 total members. In Havana, all 

of the plenipotentiaries and all but one of the negotiators on both sides were men. The exception was Tanja 

Nijmeijer (aka Alexandra Nariño, the “Dutch guerrilla”), 

who briefly joined her nine male colleagues at the 

table. It was a bit of a shock given all of the progress 

in national and international normative frameworks 

demanding women’s inclusion in peacemaking and 

all of the work of Colombian women and their allies to 

prepare the way for peace talks. 

Although the scenario has improved over time, with 

considerable efforts on the part of Colombian women’s 

organizations, for the most part, women have continued 

to be unrecognized and undervalued partners for peace. 

Women’s minimal presence as lead negotiators is 

misleading, however. At the table, around the table, 

behind the table, and at side tables, women are having their say and shaping the path to peace. From 

civil society as well, Colombian women have accompanied and advanced the peace process, shaped 

public opinion, supported a negotiated solution 

to the conflict, generated analysis and organized 

inputs, and built their capacity to engage. Women’s 

organizations have repeatedly insisted that the parties cannot leave the table until an agreement is 

reached to end the conflict, and they continue urging the Colombian government and the ELN to enter 

formal peace talks. 

Throughout the peace process, women have taken 

advantage of every opportunity and mechanism available to participate in civil society conferences, working 

groups, and research initiatives on the agenda items 

at the Havana peace tables. In 2012 and 2013, women 

participated in the civil society forums on agrarian 

development policy, political participation, illicit crops 

and drug trafficking, and victims established at the 
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 20

behest of the parties in Havana and facilitated by the 

United Nations System in Colombia and the Center 

for Reflection and Monitoring the Peace Talks (“Centro 

de Pensamiento y Seguimiento al Diálogo de Paz”) 

of the National University (Universidad Nacional). 

Women participated in working groups (mesas de trabajo regionales) in nine regions of Colombia organized 

by the Peace Commissions of the House and Senate 

in Colombia, with the support of the United Nations 

System. A special effort was made to ensure that 

40-50% of the participants in the regional working 

groups were women. With the support of UN-Women, 

women’s proposals in each consultation were synthesized and made available to the peace negotiators 

in Havana. Furthermore, Ruta Pacífica de las Mujeres 

was one of the civil society conveners of the 2014 

Regional Encounters for Peace that took place in 12 

regions of the country. Supported by the Office of the 

High Commissioner for Peace, these meetings were 

designed to air the concerns, proposals, and resources 

that civil society could offer in different regions of the 

country for a post-Accord era.

After the first year of peace talks, the persistent engagement of Colombian women and their international 

allies achieved some success in opening the peace process to women and victims from diverse populations 

across the country. The change came following a landmark National Summit of Women for Peace in October 

2013, initiated by a consortium of nine Colombian 

women’s organizations representing different ethnic, 

regional, cultural, and political backgrounds.162 The 

Summit had the backing of UN-Women and the United 

Nations system in Colombia, as well as key embassies 

and development partners present in the country, 

including Sweden, Norway, Spain, and Switzerland, as 

well as OXFAM. At the summit, some 450 representatives of Colombian women’s organizations from 30 of 

Colombia’s 32 departments met in Bogota. They put 

forth three key demands: that the parties stay at the 

table until an agreement is reached; that women be 

included at the peace table and at every stage of the 

process; and that women’s needs, interests, and experiences of conflict be considered during the talks.163

The messages of the summit were driven home at UN 

headquarters in New York, where the Committee for 

the Convention to End Discrimination against Women 

(CEDAW) had been engaged in a review of Colombia’s 

compliance with CEDAW treaty obligations.164

The National Summit of Women for Peace was pivotal 

in securing an opening for women as plenipotentiaries 

on the government peace delegation. In November 

2013, the Government appointed two women—Nigeria 

Rentería and María Paulina Riveros— as plenipotentiary 

negotiators.165 Some months later, the peace delegation 

would also establish a sub-commission on gender, and 

solicit the direct engagement of victims, women, and 

LGBTI persons at the peace talks. At the summit, women’s groups also submitted recommendations relating 

to the provisional accords already reached on agrarian 

rural development, political participation, illicit crops 

and drug-trafficking, as well as on the remaining agenda items relating to the rights of victims, the cessation 

of conflict, and the endorsement, implementation and 

monitoring of agreements.166 Their efforts have been 

accompanied by advocacy strategies and dialogue with 

the government and the international community to 

ensure due consideration of their proposals. 

By the end of the first year of peace talks, FARC 

women also secured greater participation and 

visibility on their peace delegation. In April 2013, 

Commander Victoria Sandino joined the negotiating 

team, although she was technically not brought on 

as a plenipotentiary. Nonetheless, her participation 

gave women 20 per cent of the slots at the top of 

the team. Women’s participation continued to grow, 

and by February 2015, the FARC delegation in Havana 

was made up of more than 40% women, including several female commanders, closely reflecting 

the gender composition of the FARC as a whole.167

In October 2013, FARC women launched their own 

webpage, www.mujerfariana.org, which hosts a 

variety of multimedia presentations, narratives, and 

interviews by and about the perspectives and lives 

of FARC women, and women have been active in the 

FARC communications programs.168

On the peace delegations, at the tier just below the plenipotentiaries, women on both sides 

have quietly sustained the peace process. Elena 

Ambrosi, director of the human rights office for 

the Ministry of Defense, and Lucía Jaramillo Ayerbe 

from the President’s Office, serve as alternate 
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 21

plenipotentiaries and have accompanied the process from the start. They were two of the three 

women witnesses among the 17 signatories to the 

framework agreement secretly negotiated in Cuba 

and signed on Aug. 26, 2012. (The third woman 

signatory was Sandra García (aka Sandra Ramirez), 

long-time companion of FARC founder Manuel 

Marulanda.) Elena has had a particularly significant 

role at and around the table, serving as a kind of 

adjunct plenipotenciary in her functions. 

A team of eight highly capable women from the High 

Commissioner for Peace’s Office serves as the backbone of the process from the government side.169

Among them, Mónica Cifuentes, Elena Ambrosi and 

Marcela Durán, respectively, manage the legal, thematic, and communications strategies for the team. 

In addition, eighty percent of the staff in the Office 

of the High Commissioner for Peace, the presidential 

office that supports the peace process, are women. 

In Havana, women on the peace delegations on both 

sides are engaged in researching, analyzing and crafting proposals. They are reviewing and writing memos, 

briefings, policy positions, and speeches for their teams. 

They are designing communication and education 

strategies, programs, and materials. Behind the scenes, 

out of the public eye, and with the negotiators, they are 

crafting the language of the agreements. 

For each of the five substantive agenda items at the 

peace table, teams of advisors have been formed in 

which women dominate. Women sit on major commissions, subcommissions, and working groups. Although 

these roles are generally not counted when one looks at 

women’s roles in peace processes, these are influential 

posts that have provided opportunities for women to 

engage in the process in a meaningful way. Their participation in the process belies arguments that there 

are no women with the proper qualifications to serve 

in the highest levels of the peacemaking leadership. 

Subcommissions, Commissions, and Delegations

Women inside the peace process have considerable 

power through a series of mechanisms that have 

been established during the peace process. These 

include commissions, subcommissions, thematic 

working groups, and a drafting commission. 

The two key subcommissions where women are playing 

roles at the table include the Technical Subcommission 

on Ending the Conflict and the Gender Subcommission. 

The Technical Sub-commission on Ending the Conflict 

was established in 2014 to address the issues of a bilateral 

ceasefire, the laying down of weapons, FARC prisoners, 

criminal organizations, and security guarantees. Women 

are twenty-five percent of its members; three of 10 

members on the FARC side are women, and two of the 

10 government subcommission members are women.170

The gender subcommission, unlike the technical subcommission, is composed primarily of women (one 

FARC delegate is male). Announced in June 2014 and 

installed on September 7, 2014, the subcommission is 

an innovation with few global precedents.171 It is potentially an important vehicle for women’s empowerment 

in a post-Accord period, a symbolic recognition of the 

importance of considering gender at the table, and a 

vehicle by which to ensure consideration of difficult 

themes such as sexual violence and women’s political 

participation. It has, however, no decision-making authority, and no guarantees that its recommendations will be 

accepted and implemented. Likewise, it has no authority 

to change agreements reached.172 Co-chaired by María 

Paulina Riveros for the government, and Victoria Sandino 

Palmera for the FARC-EP, the subcommission is mandated 

“to review and guarantee, with the support of national 

and international experts” any peace agreements that 

are reached, and to ensure that they “have an adequate 

gender focus.”173 Colombian government negotiator 

Nigeria Rentería (who has since stepped down from her 

post to run for governor of Chocó) noted that the commission “seeks to guarantee inclusion, social equality, and 

bring us closer to an accord that represents the interests 

of men and women.”174 The FARC delegation for its part 

expressed the hope that the commission “would produce 

real change for women and members of the lesbian, 

bisexual, gay and transgender (LBGT) communities” and 

“grant full rights to women and to the LBGTI sectors that 

have been discriminated against for so long.”175
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 22

Other than those subcommissions, there have been 

other instances, such as the Historical Commission on 

the Conflict and its Victims, established by the table 

in August 2014 to define the basis for the agreement 

on reparations for victims, where women have made 

fewer inroads. That commission in many ways replicated the lines of division and exclusion that exist 

within Colombian society. It included only one woman, 

María Emma Wills, among its 12 commissioners (two 

additional rapporteurs charged with producing the 

final report were men). It included no Afro-Colombians 

or indigenous representatives or academic specialists 

that might have provided historical perspectives on the 

conflict from these marginalized perspectives.

Another working group of jurists, established to assist with breaking through an impasse on the issue of 

transitional justice and victims, failed to include even 

one woman. Disproportionality notwithstanding, the 

group of male jurists insisted that amnesty would not 

be permitted for sexual violence in the context of the 

internal armed conflict, and would instead be treated 

as a crime against humanity that is not eligible for 

amnesty. This was a demand of many women’s organizations and one of the recommendations of groups 

at the Summit in October 2013—although, admittedly, 

not a consensus position. 

Delegations to Havana at the invitation of the peace 

table have provided an additional vehicle for women’s 

engagement. Two sets of delegations were particularly 

important. First, at the request of the table, and with 

the facilitation of the National University, the United 

Nations, and the Colombian Bishops Conference, five 

delegations of victims traveled to Cuba in the second 

half of 2014 to meet with the negotiating teams. The 

majority of the sixty victims on these delegations 

–60%— were women. The inclusion of women who 

had experienced sexual violence in the context of the 

armed conflict on the delegation gave voice to an issue 

that had not been addressed in Havana previously. UNWomen provided support to this process and helped 

to accompany the victims’ delegations. Members of 

the negotiating teams described the participation of 

these groups in Havana as “transformative” and noted 

their deepened emotional commitment to ending the 

conflict that they felt after meeting with the victims 

and hearing their experiences.

The Gender Subcommission established a second 

set of delegation visits to Havana that focused 

specifically on the perspectives and proposals of 

women’s groups—this time not as victims, but as 

peacebuilders. Between December 2014 and March 

2015, three delegations that included 18 representatives of women ́s organizations and LGTBI persons 

participated directly in the peace talks table. Their 

presence In Havana drove home the gendered 

dimensions of the war, offered new engagement 

opportunities, and exposed the negotiators to 

gender-sensitive perspectives and proposals. 

All of the delegations urged the government and 

the FARC to stay at the table until they reach a final 

accord to end the conflict, and to seek measures to deescalate the violence in the meantime. Agreements 

between the Colombian government and the FARC to 

de-escalate the violence, including through ceasefires, 

a joint demining initiative, measures to recover the 

bodies of the disappeared, and temporary measures to 

reduce bombing attacks respond in part to the growing voice of civil society made manifest in the visits 

of the victims, women and LGBTI representatives. As 

a direct result of these delegation visits to Havana, 

the FARC initiated a process of acknowledgement, 

apology, and making amends. In response to women’s 

requests in Havana and the more general demands 

of civil society to de-escalate the conflict, the FARC 

announced it would increase the recruiting age and 

release the remaining child soldiers from its ranks. 

Such engagement of delegations of victims, women’s 

groups, and LGBTI organizations at a peace table is 

unprecedented. In addition to the aforementioned 

outcomes, the opportunity to participate in the Havana 

peace talks has also contributed to repairing both the 

historic continuum of inequality, discrimination, exclusion, and violence to which women and LGBTI persons 

have been subjected, as well as their particular victimization during Colombia’s internal armed conflict, but 

to initiating possibilities for repairing the social fabric 

that has been torn during decades of war. 
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 23

Ceasefires, DDR, and Gender

War often leads to rapid changes in gender roles 

and relations, and these must be considered in the 

transitions back to peace.177 When individuals leave 

their communities to go to war, when populations are 

displaced or individuals are killed or injured, and when 

individuals return from war, men and women assume 

new roles and responsibilities.178 Some women break 

gender stereotypes to pick up arms, often abandoning 

their families in the process. In wartime, women who 

stay behind may become widowed or suddenly be 

charged with caring for family members who become 

landmine victims. Women may find themselves supporting their families as single heads of households, 

and may enter the labor market for the first time and 

become the primary breadwinners for their families – 

a role traditionally occupied by men. 

Men who go off to war (both for the State and for illegal armed groups) are seen as fulfilling the heroic 

mission assigned to their gender. Society grants them 

power and status for their wartime roles. Following 

the cessation of war, gender roles and relations 

nonetheless must be re-negotiated. Male combatants who are unable to provide for their families on 

their return may feel their gender identity under 

threat, which sometimes leads to violence against 

women and other negative coping strategies. 

Stigmatization of all ex-combatants is strong, but 

female ex-combatants, who transgressed gender 

roles when they went to war, may find it particularly 

difficult to reconfigure their lives within the narrow 

confines of traditional gender roles. Ex-combatants 

of both genders may find it difficult to get work 

and to re-define their roles in their families and 

communities. 

Disarmament, demobilization and reintegration 

(DDR) programs that use gender-aware policies and 

strategies, however, can provide opportunities for 

creating new models of masculinity and femininity that are based on fairness, respect, and dialogue, 

rather than force and violence. Increasingly, the literature is examining the role of both men and women in 

this process.179

THE CHALLENGES AHEAD

Whether or not women’s proposals in Havana will be transformed into policy options that 

promote sustainable peace through gender equality and empowerment of all girls and women remains to be seen. Will the truth commissions, land commissions, peace constituencies, 

reconciliation commissions, and other mechanisms that are established as part of the peace 

accords include gender parity and perspectives in their design, composition, implementation, 

and evaluation, as called for by the National Summit of Women and Peace.176 Will gender-sensitive budgeting exercises help ensure that the budgets for development projects designed to 

help pull the country out of war benefit men and women equally? If violence against women 

and the LGBTI community has been a tactic of war, will this be explicitly catalogued as a 

violation of any ceasefire agreements? Will respect rather than dominance be promoted as 

the new model for masculinity during peacetime? Will female and male ex-combatants each 

be given appropriate, differentiated options that meet their needs? Will reparations ensure 

women’s full access to land, restitution, and other benefits? Women’s organizations and their 

international allies will have to persist in their hard work to ensure that these questions are 

raised and addressed. 
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 24

The UNSCR resolutions mandate not only women’s 

participation, but also the integration of gender 

perspectives and gender analysis, in the design and 

implementation of conflict prevention initiatives, 

cease-fire agreements, peace accords, DDR (demobilization, disarmament, and reintegration) strategies, 

reparations programs, and post-conflict reconciliation 

initiatives and budgeting. The Colombian government, in keeping with emerging global lessons in 

other conflict zones, has recently begun to acknowledge the importance of including a gender 

perspective in DDR processes, though these have not 

yet been fully implemented.180 At the October 2013 

summit, Colombian women’s groups called for a 

rights-based (as opposed to needs-based) approach 

that recognizes women and men’s differential experiences of war and of peace, and for policies that 

recognize the heterogeneity of women by age, ethnicity, social class, region, religion, sexual orientation 

and gender identity.181

With respect to policies for ending the conflict, four 

additional points are key. First, in the DDR process, 

a differential approach that recognizes the needs 

of girls, boys, men and women is essential. Past 

Colombian programs have not accommodated the 

heterogeneity of ex-combatants and the particular 

traumas of war that different groups have experienced. Nor have they considered the specific trajectory 

of different armed groups, the particular needs of 

minors, men and women, or the specific reintegration strategies and approaches of Afro-Colombian 

and indigenous communities.182 Colombia’s past 

DDR programs have focused largely on men’s experiences of demobilization and disarmament. In 

this model, girls and women, who sometimes play 

support roles in armed groups and may not carry 

arms, fall by the wayside. As one former EPL-militant 

told me, “The negotiating model for DDR focuses on 

those with the guns and thus leaves out most of the 

women, many of whom don’t even appear in the lists 

of those demobilizing.”183

The Office of the High Commissioner for Reintegration 

has outlined a gender approach to reintegration 

that, on paper at least, now recognizes the need for 

a gender-differential approach. Past processes have 

lacked this gendered dimension, and have failed to 

meet the needs of girls and women who leave the 

jungles.184 Female ex-combatants, supporters and dependents have not benefitted equally from services, 

incentives, health care, grants, or housing support. In 

part, this is because their names are not included on 

the lists of those demobilizing and because they are 

not given clear information about the DDR process, 

their rights, options, and the procedures for securing 

benefits. Many women self-demobilize, thus foregoing the benefits to which they are entitled; some of 

these end up in poverty, drug trafficking, prostitution, 

or returning to the war. Best practices suggest that 

programs should expand definitions of “fighters” 

that keep women and girls off the demobilization 

lists, ensure that they are educated about and incorporated into benefits programs, provide economic 

alternatives, and seek to meet their differentiated 

gender needs. 

Female ex-combatants and their families have 

particular needs for sexual and reproductive health 

services, adequate health care more broadly, and 

psycho-social support, particularly relating to 

combat-related trauma, mental illness, and sexual 

violence. There has been a lack of trained psychologists and institutional entry points to address these 

issues. Women also have particular needs for physical security, support to care for their children, and 

livelihood options as they transition to civil society.185

Former ex-combatants have criticized the tendency 

of DDR programs to reproduce gendered-traditional 

approaches that leave women little opportunities 

for engagement in the public domain. Past DDR programs have perpetuated traditional roles for women 

and ignored the social and political aspirations of 

many female ex-combatants.186 Within the FARC, 

women constitute up to 40% of the membership and 

engage in a variety of roles, including positions of 

military and political authority.187 Many FARC women 

have ascended the chain of command and assumed 

mid-level commander posts.188 In the ELN, as well, 

women are thought to constitute about a third of 

the rank-and-file, and they play leadership roles in 

education, health, communications, international 

work, logistics, organizational definition, intelligence, 

political work, and military combat.189 Ensuring 

meaningful social and political engagement for these 
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 25

women will be key to their successful integration into 

civilian life. The experiences of female ex-combatants 

in Colombia and in Central America underscore the 

difficulties that ex-combatants face in finding new 

peacetime roles that allow them to continue their 

vocations as agents of social change. 190

Second, in the same way that demobilization and disarmament programs provide opportunities to de-link 

arms and weapons from politics, they also provide 

the opportunity to delink weapons from gender 

ideologies. Designing new models of “masculinity” 

and “femininity” that reject violence and gendered or 

racialized hierarchies of power in favor of respectful, 

democratic relations will be key to breaking the cycle 

of violence.191 Men and women will need to work together to negotiate new identities and to create new 

understandings about what it means to be a man or a 

woman in a society at peace. Where violence against 

women has been tacitly accepted as a norm, the best 

approaches to prevention and protection require 

building a new culture that respects and empowers 

women. This includes engaging women in visible 

leadership roles in the design and implementation of 

DDR programs. In 2014, women constituted 57% of the 

staff (229 of 400 positions) and 60% of the contractor positions (592 of 982 positions) at the Colombian 

Agency for Reintegration (ACR), but they have yet to 

break the glass ceiling in the organization.192

Third, studies from other conflict zones also leave 

clear lessons about the important role that women 

play in determining the success or failure of DDR programs.193 Women, who are deeply ensconced in their 

communities and families, are often key to determining how ex-combatants will be received when they 

return home. Their knowledge also enables them 

to be effective partners on a range of humanitarian 

matters (including IDPs, refugees, demining commitments, and youth recruitment) that are often 

included in ceasefire and peace agreements. 

Finally, in the same way that the peace accords 

should anticipate the gender-differentiated needs 

of ex-combatants, they should consider the genderdifferentiated needs of the receptor communities. 

In Colombia and elsewhere, when ex-combatants 

return to their communities of origin, there is frequently an escalation of domestic violence.194 The 

design and implementation of violence prevention 

programs, as well as the promotion of citizen pacts 

between the receiving communities and the demobilized with the leadership of women’s organizations 

and local authorities can anticipate and address this 

dynamic and help ensure that when a peace accord 

is signed, it does not translate into greater violence 

against women.195 It should be noted here that both 

male and female ex-combatants are more inclined to 

violence in the aftermath of war, though each group 

is socialized to handle this violence differently, with 

women often turning the violence inward or toward 

their children, and men more often lashing out at 

their partners.196

Women, Gender and Transitional Justice: Truth, Justice, Reparations, and 

Guarantees of Non-Repetition

Colombia has the challenge, in the shadow of the 

International Criminal Court, of finding or creating mechanisms that will comply with Colombia’s 

international obligations to investigate, prosecute, 

and punish human rights violators; satisfy victims’ 

rights to truth, justice, reparations, and guarantees of non-repetition; and be acceptable to 

both sides in the context of the peace process 

currently underway. In the proposals put forth by 

women’s organizations in Havana and synthesized 

at the National Summit of Women and Peace, 

women urged the parties to acknowledge women’s 

particular victimization; to clarify the causes, origins and impacts of the conflict on women; and to 

recognize responsibilities for that victimization.197

Women’s organizations are demanding a role in the 

discussions about how their rights will be satisfied, 

reparations for the specific damages suffered, and 

protection for their lives and physical integrity. 

Truth commissions have long been considered a necessary component of transitional justice mechanisms 

that facilitate sustainable peace. At the national 

summit, Colombian women called for parity and 

the participation of women victims in any official 
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 26

truth commission that might be established. They 

suggested that such commissions be set up at the 

departmental, municipal and local levels, and that 

they document violence by all of the armed groups, 

including the neo-paramilitary gangs.198

The Ruta Pacífica de las Mujeres, in consultation with 

truth commission experts worldwide, has already established the Colombian Women’s Truth and Memory 

Commission, which released their report, “Women’s 

Truth: Victims of the Armed Conflict in Colombia,” in 

Dec. 2013.199 Using feminist collaborative methodologies, the report draws on testimonies from close to 

1,000 women, and documents the impact of physical, 

psychological and conflict-related sexual violence 

on women’s health, gender and family relations, 

and motherhood. Unlike most truth commission 

reports, it also documents victims’ coping strategies and demands for reparations and justice. The 

Women’s Truth and Memory Commission is the first 

independent truth commission to be established in 

Colombia; the first commission to analyze the impact 

of an armed conflict on women in particular; the first 

truth commission to be promoted, led, and carried 

out by a women’s organization; and the first truth 

commission that takes an explicitly feminist, comprehensive approach aimed at documenting not only 

women’s victimization, but also women’s strategies 

to address their victimization. The report provides 

important documentation and methodological insights that should be considered in the development 

of a national truth commission process. Likewise, 

several of the National Historical Memory Center’s 

50-plus emblematic cases chart new territory in 

analyzing women’s victimization, agency, and resilience in the conflict.200 The HMC has designed and 

published innovative methodologies and guidelines 

for working with women and their communities in 

the construction of historical memory that will also 

provide valuable inputs for a truth-telling process.201

At the National Summit for Peace, women called on all 

of the armed groups to ensure that their members do 

not commit crimes of sexual violence and to uphold 

international standards that consider sexual violence 

as crimes against humanity and war crimes.202

Women victims who testified for the Colombian 

Women’s Truth and Memory Commission acknowledged that the harm they suffered is irreparable.203

They recognize however that formal reparations 

provide an opportunity to transform and re-weave 

broken lives and damaged relationships with the 

State, and to facilitate women’s rights to education, economic opportunities, justice, health care, 

and psychosocial services that can allow them to 

reclaim their lives.204 These women are calling for 

individual and collective reparations, according to 

the magnitude and nature of the particular violence 

and its context. At the individual level, victims are 

calling for measures that will allow them to heal 

and rebuild their lives with dignity, and that will 

support a process of personal and communal reconciliation.205 At the collective level, many women are 

seeking structural transformations and mechanisms 

of accountability that will confirm the collective 

censure of violence against women and genderbased violence and ensure a commitment to gender 

equality as a guarantee that the violence will not 

be repeated. For many victims of sexual violence, 

these guarantees of non-repetition include formal 

acknowledgement of responsibility by all of the parties involved in crimes of sexual violence, as well as 

a commitment to implementing structural reforms 

that address the historical discriminatory practices 

that underpin such violence.206

Peacebuilding is a transformative process to restructure social relations, transform patterns of exclusion, 

and strengthen respect for human rights, including women’s rights. As the Colombian Women’s 

Initiative for Peace observed, “Peacebuilding is not 

centered on the individual will of the armed actors of 

the war, but must be understood as a comprehensive 

political, social, economic, citizen-based, and cultural 

process.”207 It is in this broader sense that women’s 

proposals for transitional justice can be better 

understood. 
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 27

This case study on gender, women and the 

Colombian peace process illuminates the realities 

and the potential for women’s engagement and 

why that engagement is essential to peace. It shows 

how the conflict has had different effects on men 

and women that in turn vary by age and ethnicity. 

The study suggests that historic discrimination and 

the differentiated impacts of the conflict on women 

and girls, as well as women’s creative contributions 

to peace, justify women’s presence and leadership at 

every phase of the peacemaking and peacebuilding 

process, and that gender equality and enhanced political participation and power for women can help 

repair the legacy of sexual and gender-based violence. It illustrates the importance of understanding 

the gender dimensions of conflict in order to ensure 

that those dynamics are fully considered in the reconstruction of a new Colombia in the post-Accord 

phase. Neglect of these gender dimensions will easily perpetuate old patterns of exclusion, intolerance, 

discrimination and abuse. 

The Colombian case reminds us that there is much 

that can be done in the absence of a national peace 

process to prepare for peace. Colombian women 

have lobbied for legislation, defended human rights, 

promoted a public discourse for peace, mediated or 

mitigated conflict in their communities, mobilized 

constituencies, and repaired relations in communities that have been broken by war. Women have 

engaged in dialogue and action for peace, and lobbied for political solutions. Their actions have helped 

prepare the ground for the peace talks in Havana and 

are essential to building and sustaining peace. The 

Colombian process reminds us that building peace 

takes time. More than a decade of cumulative efforts 

by Colombian women, working independently and 

within civil society organizations, to secure concessions and humanitarian agreements from both 

armed groups and the government is bearing fruit in 

the current peace talks with the FARC. 

Despite international agreements that women’s 

presence at the peace table is a question of international security and peace, there is a paucity of 

women at most peace tables, and the Colombian 

one is no exception. The Colombian case shows that 

women’s absence cannot be explained by a lack of 

qualified women, and it suggests that, without external pressures, peace processes tend to reflect and 

replicate power relationships existing in the broader 

society. Where inequality is deeply and historically 

entrenched, it is normalized and invisible. Changes 

to these patterns of inequality will not come without 

concerted and unrelenting effort to secure it and to 

sustain it. 

The role of Colombian women in the peace process 

reminds us as well that the formal peace table is 

only one of many tables where negotiations take 

place. Even when women are not at the main table 

CONCLUSIONS

A peace process is more than just the signing of an agreement at the peace table; it offers the 

opportunity to address the underlying social inequities and injustices of a society that are at 

the roots of a conflict. Understanding the gender dimensions of a conflict as well as the various phases of the peace process helps to identify and evaluate the multiple entry points for 

women’s engagement. In a preparatory phase, the groundwork for a political solution is laid. 

This is usually followed by a period of formal negotiations or peace talks (with or without a 

mediator). An extensive period ensues for implementing agreements, holding parties accountable to their commitments, and engaging in the reforms and peacebuilding activities that will 

sustain the peace. In each of these phases, there are a myriad of roles and opportunities for 

women. 
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 28

(and it is important that they are there), their multiple contributions at other tables and around the 

negotiating tables should not be overlooked. Behind 

the scenes, women are playing key roles as advisors, negotiators, and facilitators, and are providing 

essential technical and substantive support to the 

negotiating teams and to the process itself. These 

roles should be recognized and women should be 

adequately and appropriately credited for their contributions. Increasingly, the research is showing that 

the quality of women’s engagement and whether or 

not their voices are heard is essential to the sustainability of peace.208

In this regard, the gender subcommission is one 

potential space for impact, and it is charged with 

ensuring that any accords reached serve men, 

women and LGBTI persons. It is, however, a body 

without decision-making authority. Its power will 

be demonstrated to the extent that it can exact 

changes that might be warranted in what has 

already been agreed to by the parties. In the end, 

women’s most important substantive contributions 

may stem from their engagement as delegates on 

the peace delegations in Cuba, their participation in 

substantive discussions about the agenda, in drafting language related to each of the agenda points, 

their broader participation on other subcommissions and working groups of the negotiating teams, 

and from other less visible roles such as preparing 

briefs for the negotiating team and designing communications and educational strategies to bring the 

public along. 

For now, Colombian women at, around, and beyond the table continue to play a role in sustaining 

the peace process, even as they are preparing to 

contribute in a post-Accord period. Given that any 

agreement will require public endorsement, women 

will be an important resource for educating the 

public about the terms of the accord and creating 

an environment of public support and legitimacy for 

peace. 

The Colombian case shows finally that strong, independent, civil society organizations—especially 

women’s organizations—have the capacity to prepare the way for a peace process and to influence 

its shape –both from within and from the outside. 

In order to be effective, furthermore, women’s organizations and civil society organizations more 

broadly must have the capacity to anticipate needs 

and be ready with proposals. Effective engagement 

demands strategic thinking; coordinated planning 

across many levels—local, regional, national and international; persistent, high-quality, timely research 

and advocacy; cultivation of alliances; and coalitionbuilding across institutional, geographic, and 

psychological barriers. It requires flexibility, innovation, and adaptation to shifting political contexts. 

Likewise, it requires resources, accompaniment, and 

technical support. International funding priorities 

need to be more robust, consistent, and reliable 

in this regard. The National Women’s Summit for 

Peace was pivotal in creating a platform that 

brought together a wide range of key women’s 

organizations and networks, and helped them to 

articulate their priorities and leverage their messaging at a national and international level. Finally, 

access to an interlocutor at the peace table is key; 

the gender subcommission has played an important 

role in providing that interlocution.

With or without peace accords, women are leading from the ground up and from the top down in 

efforts to transform their society. For now, many 

Colombian women’s organizations are seeking roles 

in the implementation of the peace accords. Rosa 

Emilia Salamanca, director of the women’s research 

group, Corporación de Investigación y Acción Social 

y Económica (CIASE), underscores the importance 

of transforming Colombian culture and notes that 

“the negotiating table is one element, but an insufficient element of a peace process.”209 Working in 

every sector—communications, churches, schools, 

families, business, the Armed Forces, indigenous 

communities, Afro communities, the arts, government institutions—sometimes in isolation, 

sometimes in coalition—women are creating a culture of peace and dialogue. Their actions form the 

backdrop against which peace talks have emerged 

and against which the ratification and implementation of peace agreements will occur. Women’s 

engagement and leadership can seal a peace deal 

and will help ensure its viability for the long haul.
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 29

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Agencia Colombiana para la Reintegración (ACR). “Perspectiva 

de género en el proceso de reintegración.” Bogotá, Colombia, 

2015.

Aguilera, Angélica. “La Ley 1719: Avance contra la violencia 

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1. The author wishes to thank Pablo Castillo-Diaz, Hanny CuevaBeteta, Lindsay Cornelio, Hannah 

Dunphy, Emily Kenney, Natasha 

Lamoreux, Leigh Pasqual, Belén 

Sanz, and Nahla Valji and 

other anonymous readers at UNWomen; esteemed colleagues 

Donny Meertens, Kimberly 

Theidon, Kathleen Kuehnast, and 

Rosa Emilia Salamanca; and research assistants Maria Antonia 

Montes and Brittney Warrick for 

their contributions to different 

versions of this article. 

Likewise, I thank the innumerable other Colombian women 

(including members of the 

Colombian government and 

FARC-EP peace delegations, 

former female members of 

insurgencies, and NGO leaders) 

and their allies for sharing their 

wisdom and for the privilege of 

accompanying their efforts to 

build a stable peace in Colombia.

2. Centro Nacional de Memoria 

Histórica (CNMH), ¡Basta Ya! 

Colombia: Memorias de guerra y 

dignidad (Bogotá: CNMH, 2013), 

http://www.centrodememoriahistorica.gov.co/micrositios/

informeGeneral/. Last accessed 

March 1, 2016.

3. As of May 1, 2015. See Unidad 

de Víctimas, Red Nacional de 

Información, http://rni.unidadvictimas.gov.co/. Last accessed 

May 14, 2015. 

4. Ibid.

5. Centro Nacional de Reparación y 

Reconciliación-Grupo de Memoria Histórica, Mujeres que hacen 

historia: Tierra, cuerpo, y política 

en el Caribe colombiano (Bogotá: 

Centro Nacional de Reparación y 

Reconciliación-Grupo de Memoria Histórica, 2011).

6. Luz María Londoño and Joana 

Fernanda Nieto V., Mujeres no 

contadas: Procesos de desmovilización y retorno a la vida civil 

de mujeres excombatientes en 

Colombia 1990-2003 (Medellín: 

La Carreta Editores, 2006), 42.

7. Myriam Criado, Personal 

Interview with Author, January 

24, 2015.

8. Virginia M. Bouvier, ed., 

Colombia: Building Peace in a 

Time of War (Washington, D.C.: 

United States Institute of Peace, 

2009), 9

9. Victoria Sandino Palmera [FARC 

Commander and member of 

the FARC Peace Delegation], Personal Interview with the Author, 

Havana, Cuba, February 12, 2015. 

10. See Winifred Tate, “From Greed 

to Grievance: The Shifting 

Political Profile of the Colombian Paramilitaries,” in Bouvier, 

Colombia: Building Peace in a 

Time of War, 116; “AUC y militares 

de Urabá, en colaboración 

permanente: Procuraduría,” 

El espectador, April 14, 2010; 

“Sentencia contra Mancuso 

confirma vínculos de las AUC 

con militares, empresarios y 

politicos,” El nuevo día [Tolima], 

March 2, 2016; “Así infiltraron las 

Auc unidad militar en Bogotá,” El 

Tiempo, March 2, 2016. 

11. In what was known as the 

“parapolitical” scandal, one-third 

of the Congress was indicted on 

charges of illicit dealings with 

the paramilitaries that included 

targeting political opponents 

and community leaders for 

assassination. Since 2006, more 

than 55 legislators have been 

convicted of ties to paramilitaries. See Claudia López, Y refundaron la patria... de cómo mafiosos 

y políticos reconfiguraron el 

Estado colombiano (Bogota: Corporación Nuevo Arco Iris, 2010); 

Human Rights Watch, World 

Report 2014, http://www.hrw.

org/world-report/2014/countrychapters/colombia; David Gagne, 

“140 Political Candidates in Colombia with Political Links,” July 

7, 2015, http://www.insightcrime.

org/news-briefs/140-politicalcandidates-in-colombia-linkedto-organized-crime-report. 

12. By late 2009, the Colombian 

press reported that 34 of 102 

senators elected in 2006, and 25 

of the country’s 168 representatives were being investigated 

for narco-parapolitical ties with 

paramilitary and drugtrafficking 

interests. Of these, only a small 

percentage were brought to trial 

and convicted. See Claudia López 

y Oscar Sevillano, “Balance político de la parapolítica,” December 

15, 2009, http://www.claudialopez.com/balance-politico-dela-parapolitica/; Juanita León, 

“En lo que va el escándalo de la 

parapolítica. Diez conclusiones,” 

July 1, 2009, http://lasillavacia.

com/historia/3129; Juanita León, 

“Por fin entendí el iceberg de la 

parapolítica,” La Silla Vacía, 

August 19, 2010, http://lasillavacia.com/historia/17477.

13. Human Rights Watch, World 

Report 2014, http://www.hrw.

org/world-report/2014/countrychapters/colombia, last accessed 

April 21, 2015.

14. Throughout this paper I use 

the American Psychological 

Association’s definition of the 

term “gender” to refer to the “attitudes, feelings, and behaviors 

that a given culture associates 

with a person’s biological sex.” 

The APA notes that “behavior 

that is compatible with cultural 

expectations is referred to as 

gender-normative; behaviors 

that are viewed as incompatible 

with these expectations constitute gender non-conformity. “ 

American Psychological Association, “Definition of Terms: Sex, 

Gender, Gender Identity, Sexual 

Orientation,” in The Guidelines 

for Psychological Practice with 

Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Clients, 

adopted by the APA Council of 

Representatives, February 18-20, 

2011. The Guidelines are available 

on the APA website at http://

www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/

guidelines.aspx.

15. See the work of María Emma 

Wills, chair of the gender team 

of the Historical Memory Group, 

esp. Comisión Nacional de Reparación y Reconciliación-Grupo 

de Memoria Histórica, Mujeres 

que hacen historia (Bogota: 

Comisión Nacional de Reparación y Reconciliación-Grupo de 

Memoria Histórica, 2011); Comisión Nacional de Reparación y 

Reconciliación-Grupo de Memoria Histórica, Mujeres y guerra. 

ENDNOTES

Víctimas y resistentes en el caribe 

colombiano (Bogota: Comisión 

Nacional de Reparación y Reconciliación-Grupo de Memoria 

Histórica, 2011); Centro Nacional 

de Memoria Histórica, El Placer: 

Mujeres, coca y guerra en el 

Bajo Putumayo (Bogota: Centro 

Nacional de Memoria Histórica, 

2012); and Comisión Nacional 

de Reparación y ReconciliaciónGrupo de Memoria Histórica, La 

tierra en disputa: Memorias del 

despojo y resistencias campesinas 

en la costa Caribe, 1960-2010 

(Bogotá: Comisión Nacional de 

Reparación y Reconciliación-Grupo de Memoria Histórica, 2010), 

http://www.centrodememoriahistorica.gov.co/descargas/

informes2010/tierra_conflicto/

la_tierra_en_%20disputa.pdf. 

16. Unidad de Víctimas, Red 

Nacional de Información (RNI), 

Enfoque étnico: pueblos y comunidades indígenas, comunidades 

negras, afrocolombianas, raizales, 

palenqueras y pueblo rrom (Bogota: 2015), http://rni.unidadvictimas.gov.co/sites/default/files/

Documentos/ENFOQUE%20

ETNICO.PDF.

17. See CNMH, ¡Basta Ya!, 259-328.

18. Unidad de Víctimas, RNI, “Registro Unico de Víctimas,” May 1, 

2015, http://rni.unidadvictimas.

gov.co/?q=node/107; last accessed May 16, 2015.

19. For more detailed documentation of the patterns of violence 

from 1958-2012, see CNMH, 

¡Basta Ya!.

20. Dirección para la Acción Integral 

contra Minas Antipersonal, 

“Víctimas por MAP [Minas Antipersonal] y MUSE [Municiones 

Usadas sin Explosionar] según 

rango de edad y sexo 1990 – 31 

de diciembre de 2015,” http://

www.accioncontraminas.gov.co/

estadisticas/Paginas/victimasminas-antipersonal.aspx.

21. See Human Rights Watch, 

“On Their Watch: Evidence of 

Senior Army Officers’ Responsibility in False Positive 

Killings. https://www.hrw.org/

report/2015/06/24/their-watch/
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 36

evidence-senior-army-officersresponsibility-false-positive-killings. (In Spanish: “El rol de los altos mandos en falsos positivos,” 

June 25, 2015, at https://www.

hrw.org/es/report/2015/06/23/

el-rol-de-los-altos-mandos-enfalsos-positivos/evidencias-deresponsabilidad-de.)

22. Programa Somos Defensores, 

Los Nadies: Informe enero-junio 

2015 (Bogota: Programa Somos 

Defensores, 2015), http://www.somosdefensores.org/attachments/

article/134/los-nadie-informesemestral-siaddhh2015.pdf.

23. See Virginia M. Bouvier and 

Esperanza Hernández Delgado, 

eds.,“Bucaramanga: Report on 

the First National Encounter of 

Women Mediators in the Colombian Armed Conflict, September 

29-October 4, 2014,” unpublished 

manuscript (Washington, D.C. 

and Bucaramanga, 2015). The 

manuscript (also available in 

Spanish) documents findings 

from workshops conducted by 

the U.S. Institute of Peace and 

the Universidad Autónoma de 

Bucaramanga. 

24. “Las mujeres somos las mamás 

de guerrillas, de militares, de 

paras; somos dadores de vida.” 

Ruby Castaño [National Coordinator for Displaced], Personal Interview with the Author, Havana, 

Cuba, Feb. 11, 2015.

25. In 2013, 84% of children in 

Colombia were born to single 

mothers or single women heads 

of households. Katheryn Meléndez Solano, “Así es el panorama 

de la mamá en Colombia,” El 

heraldo, May 10, 2015, http://

www.elheraldo.co/local/asi-esel-panorama-de-la-mama-encolombia-194772.

26. Alianza Departamental ”Tejedoras de Vida” del Putumayo, 

“Aportes y recomendaciones de 

las mujeres del Putumayo, para 

la Subcomisión de Género en la 

Mesa de Conversaciones para 

la terminación del conflicto y la 

construcción de una paz estable 

y duradera en Colombia,” Havana, Cuba, Feb. 11, 2014 [sic 2015], 

photocopy. 

27. CNRR-GMH, La tierra en disputa.

28. Organización Indígena de 

Colombia (ONIC), “Mujeres 

indígenas, víctimas invisibles del 

conflicto armado en Colombia: 

La violencia sexual, una estrategia de guerra,” Report presented 

to Margot Wallström, Special 

Representative of the SecretaryGeneral on Sexual Violence 

in Conflict during her visit to 

Colombia, 16 May 2012; cited in 

ABColombia, Sisma Mujer, and 

U.S. Office on Colombia. “Colombia: Mujeres, violencia sexual en 

el conflicto y el proceso de paz,” 

(London, U.K., November 2013), 9. 

29. Inter-American Commission on 

Human Rights, Annual Report 

2010, OEA/Ser.L/V/II, doc. 5, ch. 

4 (Colombia) para. 152 (March 

2011).

30. Unidad de Víctimas, RNI, “Registro Unico de Víctimas,” May 1, 

2015, http://rni.unidadvictimas.

gov.co/. Last accessed May 14, 

2015.

31. Claudia María Mejía Duque, 

“Los derechos de las mujeres 

víctimas en el centro de los 

derechos de las víctimas para 

una paz sostenible y duradera,” 

in Propuestas de la Cumbre de 

mujeres y paz presentada a la 

Mesa de Negociación a los puntos 

que están acordados y los que 

faltan por acordar (Havana, Cuba, 

Feb. 2015), 57.

32. Instituto de Bienestar Familiar 

and Organización Internacional 

para las Migraciones (IBFOIM), “Violencia intrafamiliar, 

sexual y comunitaria en el 

contexto del desplazamiento 

forzado” (Bogota, July 2013), 

n.p. http://rni.unidadvictimas.

gov.co/sites/default/files/

Documentos/VIOLENCIA%20

INTRAFAMILIAR%2C%20SEXUAL%20Y%20COMUNITARIA%20

EN%20EL%20CONTEXTO%20

DEL%20DESPLAZAMIENTO%20

FORZADO.pdf. Last accessed May 

14, 2015.

33. Ibid.

34. On the disproportionate impact 

of displacement on Afro-Colombians, see Order 005 (2009) 

and Order 012 (2013), Corte 

Constitucional, Sala Especial 

de Seguimiento a la Sentencia 

T-025 de 2004, http://www.

corteconstitucional.gov.co/T025-04/AUTOS%202013/258.%20

Auto%20012%20del%2004-02-

2013%20Solicitud%20de%20

informacion%20al.pdf. On the 

differential impact on women, 

see Colombia’s Constitutional 

Court Order T-025 (2004), Order 

218 (2006) and Order 092 

(2008). IBF-OIM, “Violencia 

intrafamiliar.” 

35. Ana María Ibáñez, “Costos del 

conflicto y beneficios de la paz,” 

El Tiempo, Jan. 26, 2015; CNRRGMH, Tierra en disputa; Donny 

Meertens, Email communication 

with Author, June 26, 2015.

36. The Office of the Prosecutor, 

“Situation in Colombia: Interim Report” (The Hague: 

International Criminal Court, 

November 2012, para. 39; 

http://www2.icc-cpi.int/NR/

rdonlyres/3D3055BD-16E2-4C83-

BA85-35BCFD2A7922/285102/

OTPCOLOMBIAPublicInterimReportNovember2012.pdf.

37. CNRR-GMH, La tierra en disputa. 

Some 70% of the displaced were 

landholders. Donny Meertens, 

Email communication with the 

Author, June 25, 2015.

38. “Disminuye la tolerancia frente 

a la violencia contra la mujer, 

según encuesta,” El Espectador,

March 22, 2015.

39. Oxfam, “Campaña ‘Violaciones 

y otras violencias. Saquen mi 

cuerpo de la Guerra.’ Primera encuesta de prevalencia. 

“Violencia sexual en contra de 

las mujeres en el contexto del 

conflicto armado colombiano.” 

Colombia, 2001-2009. http://

www.oxfamintermon.org/sites/

default/files/documentos/

files/101206_Primera_Encuesta_

de_Prevalencia.pdf. 

40. The regions that reported the 

most cases of domestic violence 

were Bogotá (6,744 cases), Cundinamarca (1,121 cases) and Antioquia (1,013 cases). “Bogotá, la 

ciudad con más casos de violencia intrafamiliar en Colombia,” 

El Tiempo, March 16, 2015, http://

www.eltiempo.com/archivo/

documento/CMS-12982511.

41. In a recent survey, some 37 per 

cent of married women reported 

physical abuse by their spouses. 

http://www.profamilia.org.co/

encuestas/Profamilia/Profamilia/index.php?option=com_co

ntent&view=article&id=146&It

emid=116. 

42. United Nations Security Council, 

“Conflict –Related Sexual Violence: Report of the SecretaryGeneral,” March 23, 2015, p. 6.

43. Human Rights Watch, World 

Report 2015: Colombia, 

http://www.hrw.org/worldreport/2015/country-chapters/

colombia, last accessed March 

14, 2015. 

44. In one study, 56 percent (of 

the 58 percent of survivors of 

sexual violence who gave their 

ages) were in their reproductive 

years—between 11 and 25 years 

of age, suggesting that the issue 

of children born of rape may 

have significant dimensions. 

Unidad de Víctimas, Red Nacional de Información, “￼ Informe: 

Delitos contra la integridad y la 

libertad sexual de las mujeres en 

el marco del conflicto armado 

colombiano,” May 8, 2013, p. 4, 

http://rni.unidadvictimas.gov.

co/sites/default/files/Documentos/Informe%20violencia%20sexual%20mujeres.pdf. 

Pioneering anthropological work 

is being done on the issue of 

children of rape in Peru, but I am 

unaware of any similar study on 

Colombia. See Theidon, “Hidden 

in Plain Sight.” 

45. See Benjy Hansen-Bundy, 

“Sexual Violence Employed Methodically in Colombia’s Armed 

Conflict,” Colombia Reports, 

March 18, 2013.

46. United Nations Security Council, 

“Conflict-Related Sexual Violence: Report of the Secretary 

General,” March 23, 2015.

47. Kimberly Theidon, “Hidden in 

Plain Sight. Children Born of 

Wartime Sexual Violence,” Open 

Security: Conflict and Peacebuilding, September 30, 2015. https://

www.opendemocracy.net/

opensecurity/kimberly-theidon/

hidden-in-plain-sight-childrenborn-of-wartime-sexualviolence.

48. See Unidad de Víctimas, Unidad 

para la Atención y Reparación 

Integral a las Víctimas (UARIV), 

“Delitos contra la integridad y la 

libertad sexual de las mujeres en 

el marco del conflicto armado 

colombiano,” May 8, 2013, http://

rni.unidadvictimas.gov.co/sites/

default/files/Documentos/

Informe%20violencia%20sexual%20mujeres.pdf. Last accessed 

May 13, 2015. 

49. The Legal Medicine Institute 

(INMLCF) investigated 22,597 

suspected cases of sexual 

violence, up from 12,732 in 2000. 

In 2011, five times as many cases 

involved women and girls as 

men and boys. Of these, some 

94 per cent of the male victims 

were boys; and 85 per cent of female victims were girls. Amnesty 

International, “Colombia: Hidden 
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 37

from Justice: Impunity for 

Conflict-Related Sexual Violence. 

A Follow-Up Report” (London: 

Amnesty International, 2012), 

http://www.amnestyusa.org/

sites/default/files/colombia_

vaw_report_oct._4_embargoed.

pdf; last accessed April 18, 2015. 

50. Constitutional Court, Order 092 

(2008), http://www.corteconstitucional.gov.co/relatoria/

Autos/2008/A092-08.htm. Last 

accessed Apr. 11, 2015. 

51. UN Security Council, “ConflictRelated Sexual Violence: Report 

of the Secretary-General,” March 

23, 2015.

52. See especially Constitutional 

Court orders 098 (2013) and 009 

(2015). European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights 

(ECCHR), Sisma Mujer, and Colectivo de Abogados José Alvear 

Restrepo (CAJAR), Comunicación 

a la CPI [Corte Penal Internacional] sobre la violencia sexual en 

Colombia, http://www.google.

com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc

=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0

CDYQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%

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53. ABColombia, Sisma Mujer, and 

U.S. Office on Colombia, “Colombia: Mujeres, Violencia Sexual en 

el Conflicto y el Proceso de Paz,” 

n.d., http://www.abcolombia.

org.uk/downloads/Sexual_violence_report_Spanish.pdf.

54. United Nations Security Council, 

“Conflict–Related Sexual Violence: Report of the SecretaryGeneral,” March 23, 2015, p. 6.

55. Amnesty International, “Colombia: Hidden from Justice,” and 

Amnesty International, “Colombia: ‘This is What We Demand, 

Justice!’: Impunity for Sexual 

Violence against Women in Colombia’s Armed Conflict” (Index: 

AMR 23/018/2011), September 

2011, p. 5. 

56. United Nations Security Council, 

“Conflict–Related Sexual Violence: Report of the SecretaryGeneral,” March 23, 2015, p. 7.

57. Luz Piedad Caicedo and María 

Milena Méndez, La violencia 

sexual. Una estrategia paramilitar en Colombia. Argumentos 

para imputarle responsabilidad 

penal a Salvatore Mancuso, 

Hernán Giraldo y Rodrigo Tovar 

(Bogota: Corporación Humanas, 

2013), 69.

58. Ibid., 65.

59. Ibid., 119-123.

60. The Peace and Justice Tribunal 

considered 175 cases of violence 

against women by Salvatore 

Mancuso and other paramilitary 

leaders and found them guilty 

of “sexual violence, including 

kidnapping of women for the 

purpose of prostitution and 

sexual slavery, sexual assault, 

forced sterilization and forced 

abortion.” United Nations Security Council, “Conflict–Related 

Sexual Violence: Report of the 

Secretary-General,” March 23, 

2015, p. 6. 

61. Centro Nacional de Memoria 

Histórica [CNMH], La masacre de 

Bahía Portete. Mujeres Wayúu en 

la mira (Bogotá: CNMH, 2010).

62. CNMH, ¡Basta Ya!, 270.

63. Caicedo and Méndez, La violencia sexual, 69. 

64. See “Las esclavas sexuales de 

Otoniel,” Semana, March 14, 

2015, http://www.semana.com/

nacion/multimedia/sexo-conmenores-de-edad-tiene-otoniellider-de-los-urabenos/420895-3, 

and “Redada contra el ’Clan 

Usuga’,” El Tiempo, April 22, 2015, 

http://www.eltiempo.com/

politica/justicia/capturan-a75-senalados-miembros-delclan-usuga/15607077. Last 

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65. “Las esclavas sexuales de 

Otoniel.”. 

66. ABColombia et al., “Colombia,” 9.

67. Alto Comisionado de Naciones Unidas para Refugiados 

(ACNUR), “Ganadoras 2014,” 

http://www.acnur.org/t3/

ganadoras-2014/.

68. Ibid. 

69. GMH, Mujeres y guerra, 136-56.

70. Ibid., 153.

71. CNMH, El Placer.

72. Ibid., 88. 

73. ABColombia et al., “Colombia,” 1.

74. Human Rights Watch, “You’ll 

Learn Not To Cry”: Child 

Combatants in Colombia,” 

2003, http://www.hrw.org/

reports/2003/colombia0903/4.

htm#_Toc08. Last accessed April 

11, 2015; Amnesty International, 

“Colombia: Hidden from Justice;” 

Amnesty International, “This is 

What We Demand,” 5.

75. Natalia Herrera, “Las mujeres 

como sujetos activos: una 

aproximación desde el conflicto 

armado colombiano,” La silla

vacía, http://lasillavacia.com/

historia-invitado/41299/mariaholes/el-papel-de-las-mujeresen-la-guerra. See also Juan David 

Laverde Palma, “Así obligan a las 

mujeres a abortar en las Farc,” El 

Espectador, January 29, 2013. 

76. Human Rights Watch, “’You’ll 

Learn Not To Cry.’”

77. ABColombia et al., “Colombia”, 1. 

78. “Entrevista exclusiva con Lucero 

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de Simón Trinidad,” YouTube, 

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79. UN Security Council, “Report of 

the Secretary General, Conflictrelated Sexual Violence,” Jan. 13, 

2012, par. 19. 

80. ABColombia et al., “Colombia,” 

11-12.

81. European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights 

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en el conflicto colombiano - 

un caso para la Corte Penal 

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86. Asociación Regional de Mujeres 

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87. Ambassador Miguel Camilo Ruiz 

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90. Ruiz Blanco, “Intervention,” p. 2.

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96. Based on data as of January 15, 

2015. Inter-Parliamentary Union, 

“Women in National Parliaments,” http://www.ipu.org/

wmn-e/arc/classif011115.htm, 

last accessed January 15, 2016.

97. The regional average for the 

Americas was 26.9 per cent for 

both houses. Ibid. 

98. “Las mujeres lideran en el 9.8% 

de los municipios del país y el 

6.25% de los departamentos,” 

Organización Electoral Registraduría Nacional del Estado Civil; 

http://www.registraduria.gov.

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20, 2015.

99. A Look at the Human Rights of 

Indigenous Women In Colombia: Shadow Report, CEDAW 

Session 56 of the Committee 

on the Elimination of All Forms 

of Discrimination against 

Women, Sept. 30-Oct. 18, 2013 

(Bogota, Colombia, August 2013); 

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REPORT%20CEDAW%20INDIGENOUS%20WOMEN%20IN%20

COLOMBIA.pdf. Last accessed 

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100. For a comprehensive analysis of 

gender discrimination against 

LGBTI individuals within the 

context of the Colombian armed 

conflict, see Centro Nacional de 

Memoria Histórica, Aniquilar 

la Diferencia. Lesbianas, gays, 

bisexuales y transgeneristas en 

el marco del conflicto armado 

colombiano (Bogotá: CNMH, 

Unidad para la Atención y Reparación Integral a las Víctimas 

(UARIV), USAID y Organizacion 

Internacional par alas Migraciones (OIM), 2015).

101. Comisión Española de Ayuda al 

Refugiado, “Colombia: Situación 

del Colectivo LGTBI,” p. 16, http://

www.cear.es/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/COLOMBIA.2015.

LGTBI_.pdf.

102. “Los siete triunfos jurídicos de la 

comunidad LGTBI en Colombia,” 

Publimetro, Feb. 19, 2015, http://

www.publimetro.co/lo-ultimo/

los-siete-triunfos-juridicos-de-lacomunidad-lgtbi-en-colombia/

lmkobs!bX0mKmSboSN9/.

103. United Nations Security Council, 

“Conflict–Related Sexual Violence: Report of the SecretaryGeneral,” March 23, 2015, p. 7.

104. This April 2014 report documents a total of 562 cases of 

victimization of LGBTI individuals. Unidad de Víctimas, Unidad 

para la Atención y Reparación 

Integral a las Víctimas (UARIV), 

Informe Subdirección Red Nacional de Informacion, “Víctimas 

del conflicto armado interno con 

orientaciones sexuales diversas 

Víctimas del conflicto armado 

interno con orientaciones sexuales diversas,” April 2014. http://

rni.unidadvictimas.gov.co/sites/

default/files/Documentos/

orientaciones%20sexuales%20

diversas.pdf.

105. Milena Sarralde Duque,“518 

LGBTI han sido reconocidos 

como víctimas del conflicto,” 

El Tiempo, May 16, 2015; http://

www.eltiempo.com/archivo/

documento/CMS-13414563. Last 

accessed May 16, 2015. 

106. Sarralde Duque,“518 LGBTI.” 

107. Mariángela Urbina Castilla, Colombia Diversa, “¿Qué hay detrás 

del suicidio de Sergio Urrego?” 

YouTube, November 10, 2015, 

https://www.youtube.com/

watch?list=UUg6gaAdUZQ_Q6

KGSouqXupg&t=21&v=4CisM

FeaZV4.

108. Corporación Caribe Afirmativo, 

Gobernación Bolívar, Línea base 

y lineamientos de política pública 

en diversidad sexual e identidades 

de género (2013), 92. 

109. Joint NGO submission to 

CEDAW, Jan. 28, 2013, http://

www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cedaw/docs/ngos/JointNGOsubmission_Colombia56_PSWG.

pdf. 

110. GMH, Mujeres y guerra.

111. Ibid., 67-9.

112. Recalling resolutions 1261 (1999), 

1308 (2000), 1314(2000), 1325 

(2000), 1379 (2001), 1460 (2003) 

and 1539 (2004), the Council 

established a monitoring and 

reporting mechanism on the use 

of child soldiers. See “Security 

Council establishes monitoring, 

reporting mechanism on use of 

child soldiers,” United Nations, 

July 26, 2005.

113. “¿Cuántos niños hay en la 

guerra?” Verdad abierta, Feb. 23, 

2015, https://www.verdadabierta.com/victimas-seccion/reclutamiento-de-menores/5629-

cuantos-ninos-hay-en-la-guerra.

114. “Cifras de reclumamiento [sic] 

de menores en Colombia,” El 

Tiempo, April 16, 2015, http://

www.eltiempo.com/multimedia/infografias/cifras-de-reclumamiento-de-menores-en-colombia/15240835; last accessed 

April 16, 2015. 

115. Delegación de paz de las FARCEP, “Anuncio sobre menores en el 

conflicto,” La Habana, Cuba, Feb. 

12, 2015; Delegación de paz de las 

FARC-EP, “Los sueños de todos los 

niños, niñas y adolescentes se 

garantizarán con la paz,” Feb. 10, 

2016, http://www.pazfarc-ep.org; 

“Las FARC Continúan reclutando 

menores,” El colombiano, Feb. 10, 

2016, http://www.elcolombiano.

com/colombia/las-farc-continuan-reclutando-menores-en-elputumayo-AI3578525.

116. Human Rights Watch, “’You’ll 

Learn Not To Cry’”.

117. “Historic Ruling for Conscientious Objection in Colombia,” 

Jan. 31, 2015; http://peacepresence.org/2015/01/31/historic-ruling-for-conscientious-objectionin-colombia/. Last accessed May 

16, 2015.

118. “El 47 % de los integrantes de 

las FARC fue reclutado en la 

niñez,” Semana, October 29, 

2014, http://www.semana.com/

nacion/articulo/el-47-de-los-integrantes-de-las-farc-fueron-reclutados-siendo-ninos/407422-3. 

119. Springer breaks down the 

numbers for FARC, ELN, and 

AUC based on a survey of 491 

“desvinculados” (delinked 

youth). Natalia Springer, Como 

corderos entre lobos: Del uso y 

reclutamiento de niñas, niños y 

adolescentes en el marco del conflicto armado y la criminalidad 

en Colombia (Colombia: Springer 

Consulting Services, 2012), 15 and 

30; http://www.centrodememoriahistorica.gov.co/descargas/

informe_comoCorderosEntreLobos.pdf.

120. Human Rights Watch, “’You’ll 

Learn Not To Cry,’” 5.

121. “¿Cuántos niños hay en la 

Guerra?”, n.p. Ministry of Defense figures put 66% of those 

delinked in the last twelve years 

from the FARC and 17% from the 

ELN. “Cifras de reclumamiento 

[sic] de menores en Colombia,” El 

Tiempo, April 16, 2015, p. 5. 

122. “Cifras de reclumamiento [sic],” 

n.p. 

123. “¿Cuántos niños hay en la 

Guerra?” n.p.

124. Unidad de Víctimas, RNI, “Registro Unico de Víctimas,” May 

1, 2015. 

125. Olga Lucía Valencia and María 

Fernanda Daza, “Vinculación a 

grupos armados: un resultado del conflicto armado en 

Colombia,” Revista Diversitas 

– Perspectivas en Psicología 6:2 

(2010), 429-439.

126. UNDP et al., “Blame It on the 

War?” This was confirmed in 

my conversations with FARC 

commanders and members 

of the peace delegation. FARC 

Commanders Victoria Sandino, 

Mireya Andrade, Erika Montero, 

and Bibiana Hernández, Collective Interview with the Author, 

February 15, 2015, Havana, Cuba.

127. Sandino, Hernández, Andrade, 

and Montero, Collective 

Interview.

128. In the late 1990, as the peace 

process with FARC was under 

way in Caguán, there was a huge 

influx of girls who joined the 

FARC. Victoria Sandino, Personal 

Interview with the Author, Havana, Cuba, Feb. 12, 2015.

129. Sandra Milena Sandoval, 

Personal Interview with the 

Author, Girardot, Cundinamarca, 

September 2009.

130. Sandino, Hernández, Andrade, 

and Montero, Collective 

Interview.

131. Quoted in “¿Cuántos niños hay 
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 39

en la guerra?” n.p.

132. Infobae-América, “Las 

bacrim son los principales 

reclutadores de niños en 

Colombia,” Buenos Aires, Feb. 

12, 2015, http://www.infobae.

com/2015/02/12/1626469-lasbacrim-son-los-principales-reclutadores-ninos-colombia. Last 

accessed May 15, 2015. 

133. Alianza Departamental, “Aportes 

y recomendaciones.”

134. “UN Envoy on Sexual Violence Says Eradicating Sexual 

Violence in Colombia Requires 

Investment in Communities,” 

March 5, 2015, http://www.

un.org/youthenvoy/2015/03/

special-representative-unitednations-secretary-general-sexual-violence-says-eradicating-sexual-violence-colombia-requiresinvestment-communities/.

135. Infobae-América, “Las bacrim.” 

136. “Colombia is Second in World 

for Land Mine Victims, Behind 

Afghanistan,” Latino Fox News,

September 26, 2012, http://

latino.foxnews.com/latino/

news/2012/09/26/colombiasecond-in-world-for-landminevictims-behind-afghanistan/. 

Last accessed April 11, 2015.

137. Report of the SecretaryGeneral to the Security Council 

(A/68/878–S/2014/339) issued 

on 15 May 2014, https://childrenandarmedconflict.un.org/

countries/colombia/; Accessed 

March 5, 2015. 

138. Ibid. 

139. Ibid. 

140. “Security Council, Unanimously 

Adopting Resolution 2250 (2015), 

Urges Member States to Increase Representation of Youth 

in Decision-Making at All Levels,” 

December 9, 2015, http://www.

un.org/press/en/2015/sc12149.

doc.htm.

141. Debora Barros Fince [Leader, 

Wayuumunsurat, Women Weaving Peace], Personal Interview 

with the Author, Havana, Cuba, 

December 15, 2015.

142. For an innovative youth selfeducation process, see Hijos e 

Hijas por la Memoria y Contra la 

Impunidad, Hescuela: Desaprendiendo para liberar (Bogotá: Hijos 

Colombia, 2012).

143. Alvaro Villarraga Sarmiento, ed., 

Acuerdos con el EPL, PRT, MAQL y 

CRS. Diálogos con a CGSB. Tomo 

III (Bogotá: Fundación Cultura 

Democrática, 2009).

144. Londoño and Fernanda Nieto V., 

Mujeres no contadas, 62.

145. Grupo de Trabajo de la Resolución 1325 en Colombia, Informe 

de Monitoreo de la Resolución 

1325 de ONU en Colombia-2011.

146. As this publication goes to press, 

it should be noted that the 

March 30, 2016, announcement 

that formal peace talks between 

the Colombian government 

and the ELN were forthcoming 

included two women out of 12 

signatories. These were Paola 

Celis S. for the government and 

Omaira Elena Vásquez for the 

ELN.

147. Mejía currently serves as Colombian Permanent Representative 

to the United Nations.

148. As director of REDEPAZ, Ana 

Teresa Bernal coordinated two 

pioneering peace initiatives–an 

informal ballot initiative known 

as the Boys’ and Girls’ Mandate 

for Peace that garnered 3 million 

votes in a 1996, and a broader 

Citizens’ Mandate for Peace, Life, 

and Liberty in 1997 that secured 

10 million votes. As the representative of peace organizations to 

the National Peace Council, she 

was then selected as the NPC’s 

representative to the Thematic 

Committee of the peace talks 

that were started in Feb. 1999. 

Ana Teresa Bernal Montañes, 

Email Communication with the 

Author, January 25, 2016. 

149. Corporación SISMA Mujer and 

Mujeres en Zona de Conflicto 

(MZC), “Diagnóstico: mujer, paz 

y seguridad: Los movimientos 

de mujeres y paz en Colombia. 

Desde los años noventa hasta 

hoy,” July 2010, p. 20, http://mzc.

org.es/documentos/diagnostico%20colombia%20DEFINITIVO%20SEP12.pdf.

150. See Ibid., 20-21.

151. See Catalina Rojas, “Women 

and Peacebuilding in Colombia: 

Resistance to War, Creativity for 

Peace,” in Bouvier, Colombia: 

Building Peace in a Time of War, 

207-24. 

152. Rojas, “Women and Peacebuilding in Colombia,” 215.

153. “Participación directa y 

autónoma de las organizaciones 

de mujeres en los diferentes 

procesos nacionales y locales de 

diálogo y negociación política 

del conflicto social y armado, que 

incluya y represente los intereses 

de la diversidad de Movimiento 

Social de Mujeres.” Law 812, 

“Mujeres constructoras de paz y 

desarrollo,” Art. 8, paragraph 10c, 

June 26, 2003, El Abedul. Diario 

Oficial 45.231, p. 59/125, http://

programa.gobiernoenlinea.

gov.co/apc-aa-files/92e2edae

878558af042aceeafd1fc4d8/

ley_812_2003.pdf; last accessed 

April 10, 2015.

154. See Ibid., 21-24.

155. Alianza Departamental, “Aportes 

y recomendaciones.” The World 

Health Organization announced 

in early 2015 that the glyphosate 

used in the spraying is probably 

cancer causing in humans, and 

drug policies have since abandoned the practice. See Daniel 

Cressey and Nature magazine, 

“Widely Used Herbicide Linked 

to Cancer,” Scientific American,

March 25, 2015, http://www.

scientificamerican.com/article/

widely-used-herbicide-linked-tocancer/. 

156. Corporación SISMA MUJER and 

MZC, “Diagnóstico,” 27-28.

157. Virginia M. Bouvier, “Colombia’s 

Crossroads: The FARC and the Future of the Hostages,” USIPeace 

Briefing, 2008, http://www.usip.

org/publications/colombiascrossroads-the-farc-and-thefuture-of-the-hostages.

158. Bouvier, Colombia: Building 

Peace in a Time of War; “Women 

Mediating Peace In Colombia,” 

video (Chicago: Artworks, 2016), 

https://youtu.be/GbU8CPzjnuA.

159. Ibid., 33. 

160. Virginia M. Bouvier, “Hope 

and Expectation in Colombia,” 

Colombia Calls, Sept. 7, 2012, 

https://vbouvier.wordpress.

com/2012/09/07/hope-andexpectation-in-colombia/.

161. Author communication with 

Belén Sanz [Country Director, 

ONU-Mujeres], May 15, 2015.

162. The consortium included Casa 

de la Mujer, Ruta Pacífica de 

las Mujeres, Red Nacional de 

Mujeres, Mujeres por la Paz, Colectivo de Pensamiento Acción 

Mujeres, Paz y Seguridad, Grupo 

de Seguimiento de la Resolución 

1325, Conferencia Nacional de 

Organizaciones Afrocolombianas (CNOA), Iniciativa de 

Mujeres Colombianas por la Paz 

(IMP), and Asociación Nacional 

de Mujeres Campesinas, Negras 

e Indígenas de Colombia 

(ANMUCIC). National Summit 

of Women for Peace, SynthesisExecutive Summary (Bogota, 

Colombia, 23 to 25 October 2013) 

[photocopy]. 

163. In addition, they generated 

hundreds of recommendations around the themes of 

implementation, endorsement, 

and verification of peace agreements. See National Summit 

of Women for Peace, SynthesisExecutive Summary. 

164. CEDAW, “Examen de los 

informes presentados por los 

Estados partes en virtud del 

artículo 18 de la Convención 

sobre la eliminación de todas las 

formas de discriminación contra 

la mujer,” 56o session, Sept. 

30-Oct. 18, 2013, http://daccessdds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/

GEN/G13/420/18/PDF/G1342018.

pdf?OpenElement.

165. In May 2015, the government would add María 

Angela Holguín to its team of 

plenipotentiaries. 

166. “Propuestas de la Cumbre de 

mujeres y paz presentada a la 

Mesa de Negociaicion a los puntos que estan acordados y los 

que faltan por acordar,” Havana, 

Cuba, Feb. 2015.

167. Fixing percentages is a bit 

problematic, as numbers are 

subject to change over time. 

New members arrive on the 

island, the composition of 

the teams changes over time, 

and public information about 

the teams is difficult to come 

by. As of Feb. 12, 2015, women 

included 17 women (42.5%) of 40 

delegates in Havana. (Victoria 

Sandino, Personal Interview 

with the Author, Havana, Cuba, 

Feb. 12, 2015). Secretaria Distrital 

de la Mujer of the Office of the 

Mayor of Bogota notes that of 

30 members of the FARC peace 

delegation, 13 (43%) are women, 

suggesting that the additional 

10 members may be in Havana 

in other consulting capacities 

with the delegation. In either 

case, the percentage remains 

roughly the same. (Secretaria 

Distrital de la Mujer of the Office 

of the Mayor of Bogota, “De 

Santo Domingo a La Habana: El 

papel de las mujeres en la firma 

de acuerdos de paz,” http://

www.sdmujer.gov.co/images/
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 40

pdf/entre_santo_domingo_y_

la_habana_bogota_humana,pdf, 

n.d., last accessed April 25, 2015.) 

168. Timoleón Jiménez [Comandante 

del Estado Mayor Central de las 

FARC-EP], “Presentación de la 

página dedicada a las mujeres 

colombianas,” Oct. 11, 2013, 

http://mujerfariana.org/index.

php/inicio-portal/presentacion. 

Last accessed April 11, 2015.

169. Juanita León, “El matriarcado de 

la paz,” La silla vacía, Jan. 14, 2013.

170. For the FARC side, Erika Montero, 

Mireya Andrade, and Mariyeli 

Ortiz; for the government, Navy 

Lieutenant Juanita Millán 

Fernández and Mónica Cifuentes Osorio, legal director of the 

Office of the High Commissioner 

for Peace.

171. Sri Lanka had a similar gender 

subcommission in its peace 

process.

172. Beyond the two co-chairs, 

subcommission members on the 

government side have changed 

according to the particular topics being discussed. FARC subcommission members, on the 

other hand, have been more defined. They initially included Yira 

Castro, Diana Grajales, Victoria 

Sandino, Alexandra Nariño and 

Camila Cienfuegos. By February, 

2015, however, its members were 

Erika Montero, Mireya Andrade, 

Alexandra Narino, Isabela Sanroque, and Rubín Morro. (Victoria 

Sandino, Personal Interview with 

the Author, Havana, Cuba, Feb. 

12, 2015; Yira Castro, “Por un enfoque de género en los acuerdos 

parciales,” Sept. 7, 2014, http://

www.pazfarc-ep.org/index.php/

articulos/reportaje/2128-por-unenfoque-de-genero-en-los-acuerdos-parciales. Last accessed 

April 11, 2015. 

173. See Virginia M. Bouvier, 

“Breaking News from Havana: 

Joint Declaration of Principles 

on Victims,” Colombia Calls,

June 7, 2014, https://vbouvier.

wordpress.com/2014/06/07/

breaking-news-from-havanajoint-declaration-of-principleson-victims/. Last accessed April 

11, 2015. 

174. See Nigeria Renteria, “Declaración de la Alta Consejera 

para la Equidad de la Mujer, 

Nigeria Rentería, al instalar 

la subcomisión de Género en 

la Mesa de Conversaciones 

de La Habana,” Sept. 7, 2014, 

http://wp.presidencia.gov.co/

Noticias/2014/Septiembre/

Paginas/20140907_01-propazDeclaracion-Alta-ConsejeraEquidad-Mujer-Nigeria-Renteriasubcomision-Genero-La-Habana-Conversaciones.aspx. Last 

accessed April 11, 2015. 

175. Delegación de Paz de las FARCEP, “Mensaje de las FARC-EP: 

Instalación de la sub comisión 

de género,” September 7, 2014, 

http://www.pazfarc-ep.org/

index.php/noticias-comunicados-documentos-farc-ep/

delegacion-de-paz-farc-ep/2127-

mensaje-de-farc-ep-instalacion-sub-comision-de-genero. 

Last accessed April 12, 2015.

176. “Propuestas de la Cumbre de 

mujeres y paz presentada a la 

Mesa de Negociaicion a los puntos que estan acordados y los 

que faltan por acordar,” Havana, 

Cuba, Feb. 2015.

177. Susan Grayzel, “Changing Lives: 

Gender Expectations and Roles 

During and After World War 

One”; http://www.bl.uk/worldwar-one/articles/changing-livesgender-expectations#sthash.

AjmT55A7.dpuf.

178. Tovar Rojas, Patricia, Familia, 

género y antropología: desafíos 

y transformaciones (Bogotá, Colombia: Instituto Colombiano de 

Antropología e Historia, 2003).

179. Joseph Vess, Gary Barker, Sanam 

Naraghi-Anderlini, and Alexa 

Hassink, “The Other Side of 

Gender: Men as Critical Agents 

of Change,” Special Report 320 

(Washington, D.C.: United States 

Institute of Peace, Dec. 2013); 

Kathleen Kuehnast and Nina 

Sudhakar, “The Other Side of 

Gender: Including Masculinity Concerns in Conflict and 

Peacebuilding,” Peace Brief

(Washington, D.C.: United States 

Institute of Peace, January 2011; 

and Ian Bannon and Maria C. 

Correia, eds., The Other Half of 

Gender: Men’s Issues in Development (Washington, D.C.: World 

Bank, 2006). 

180. Agencia Colombiana para la 

Reintegración (ACR), “Perspectiva de Género en el Proceso de 

Reintegración,” http://www.reintegracion.gov.co/es/la-reintegracion/centro-de-documentacion/

Documentos/Perspectiva%20

de%20g%C3%A9nero%20

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181. “Propuestas de la Cumbre,” 6. 

182. Comisión Nacional de Reparación y Reconciliación, II Informe 

de la Comision Nacional de Reparacion y Reconciliacion (Bogota: 

CNRR, August 2010).

183. Myriam Criado [former member 

of the EPL], Skype Interview 

with the Author, Jan. 24, 2015. 

This was confirmed in several 

other conversations in January 

and February 2015 with other 

ex-combatants.

184. Female ex-combatants of the 

M-19 and EPL, Skype interviews 

with the Author, January and 

February 2015.

185. Dyan Mazurano, “Women in 

Armed Opposition Groups,” 

Geneva Call, p. 9.

186. Female ex-combatants from the 

M-19 and EPL, Skype interviews 

with the Author, Jan. and Feb. 

2015.

187. “Mujeres, sexo fuerte en las 

Farc,” El País, Aug. 1, 2010, http://

www.elpais.com.co/elpais/

judicial/noticias/mujeres-sexofuerte-en-farc. Accessed March 

1, 2015. 

188. “Franja Invisible” (Bogota: Fundación Ideas para la Paz, 2005). 

189. Nicolás Rodríguez Bautista, 

“Prólogo,” Equipo Nacional 

de Mujeres del ELN, Mujeres 

guerrilleras, elenas, y camilistas, 2014; https://issuu.

com/cami1965/docs/mujeres_guerrilleras_elenas_y_

camil/3?e=6116813/9250679. Last 

accessed March 1, 2015.

190. Viterna, “Radical or Righteous?” 

214. 

191. See Kimberly Theidon, “Reconstrucción de la masculinidad y 

reintegración de excombatientes en Colombia,” Working Paper 

5 (Bogota: Fundación Ideas para 

la Paz, April 2009); Kimberly 

Theidon, “Gender, Conflict and 

Peacebuilding: State of the Field 

and Lessons Learned from USIP 

Grant Making,” Peaceworks 76

(Washington, D.C.: United States 

Institute of Peace, 2011). 

192. Agencia Colombiana para 

la Reintegración, Perspectiva 

de Género en el Proceso de 

Reintegración (Bogota, n.d.), 

p. 1, http://www.reintegracion.

gov.co/es/la-reintegracion/

centro-de-documentacion/

Documentos/Perspectiva%20

de%20g%C3%A9nero%20

en%20el%20Proceso%20de%20

Reintegraci%C3%B3n.pdf. Accessed May 7, 2015. 

193. See Jacqueline O’Neill, “Are 

Women the Key to Peace in 

Colombia?” Foreign Policy, April 

20, 2015, https://foreignpolicy.

com/2015/04/20/are-womenthe-key-to-peace-in-colombiafarc-talks/#. Last accessed April 

21, 2015. 

194. UNIFEM and Corporación Humanas, “Riesgos para la seguridad 

de las mujeres en procesos 

dereinserción de excombatientes: Estudio sobre el impacto de 

la reinserción paramilitar en la 

vida y seguridad de las mujeres 

en los municipios de Montería 

y Tierralta departamento de 

Córdoba,” Bogota, Nov. 2005, 

http://www.humanas.org.co/

archivos/riesgos_para_la_seguridad_de_las_mujeres.pdf; 

Cecilia Barraza and Luz Piedad 

Caicedo, Mujeres entre mafiosos 

y señores de la Guerra: Impacto 

del proceso de desarme, desmobilización y reintegración en la vida 

y seguridad de las mujeres en 

comunidades en pugna: Caso Villavicencio (Bogota: Corporación 

Humanas, Nov. 2007), http://

www.humanas.org.co/archivos/

Mujeres_entre_mafiosos_y_senores_de_la_guerra.pdf. See also 

Patricia Ramírez Parra, “Estudio 

sobre el impacto de la reinserción paramilitar en la seguridad 

humana de las mujeres de comunidades receptoras. Medellín, 

Bajo Cauca y Urabá,” UNIFEM: 

Secretaría de Equidad de Género 

para las Mujeres, Gobernación 

de Antioquia, 2007.

195. “Propuestas de la Cumbre,” p. 62. 

196. United Nations Development 

Programme and United Nations 

Inter-Agency Working Group on 

Disarmament, Demobilization 

and Reintegration, “Blame it on 

the War? The Gender Dimensions of Violence in Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration,” 2012, p. http://www.

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197. “Propuestas de la Cumbre,” 46.

198. “Propuestas de la Cumbre,” 47.

199. Comisión de Verdad y Memoria 

de Mujeres Colombianas, La verdad de las mujeres. Víctimas del 
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 41

conflicto armado en Colombia. 

Resumen (Bogota: Ruta Pacífica 

de las Mujeres, Nov. 2013). For 

a discussion of the methology, 

see Ruta Pacífica de las Mujeres, 

Carla Afonso and Carlos Martín 

Beristain, Memoria para la vida: 

Una comisión de la verdad desde 

las mujeres para Colombia

(Bilbao, UPV/EHU, 2013). 

200. See in particular: La masacre de 

Bahía Portete. Mujeres Wayuu 

en la mira (2010); Mujeres que 

hacen historia (2011); Mujeres y 

Guerra. Víctimas y resistentes en 

el Caribe colombiano (2011); and 

El Placer. Mujeres, coca y guerra 

en el Bajo Putumayo (2012); last 

accessed April 26, 2015.

201. See Historical Memory Group/

Grupo de Memoria Histórica 

(GMH), Recordar y narrar el 

conflicto: Herramientas para 

reconstruir memoria hist

órica/

Remembering and Narrating Con-

flict: Resources for Doing Historical 

Memory Work (Bogota: Centro 

Nacional de Memoria Histórica, 

2009); Grupo de Memoria 

Histórica, La memoria histórica 

desde la perspectiva de género: 

Conceptos y herramientas, http://

www.centrodememoriahistorica.

gov.co/informes/informes-2009/

recordar-y-narrar-el-conflicto; 

and Cartilla: Reconstrucción 

de memoria histórica desde la 

perspectiva de género. 

202. “Propuestas de la Cumbre,” 47.

203. Comisión de Verdad, La verdad 

de las mujeres, 13.

204. “Las mujeres tienen una concep-

ción estructural de la reparación 

como un conjunto de medidas 

que cambien sus condiciones 

y ofrezcan oportunidades 

para retejer sus vidas. Es vista 

como parte de un cambio de 

la relación del Estado con las 

victimas, dejando de verlas bajo 

la óptica del estigma para pasar 

al reconocimiento, dejando de 

ver sus necesidades como de 

ayuda sino como un ejercicio 

de sus derechos. Las medidas 

educativas, la salud, y la atención 

psicosocial suponen un con-

junto de medidas orientadas a 

retomar sus vidas.” Comisión de 

Verdad, La verdad de las mujeres, 

13-14.

205. See Alianza Departamental, 

“Aportes y recomendaciones,” 5.

206. See Rubio-Marin, Ruth (ed.). 

The Gender of Reparations: 

Unsettling Sexual Hierarchies 

while Redressing Human Rights 

Violations. Cambridge: European 

University Institute, July 2009.

207. Iniciativa de Mujeres Colombi-

anas por la Paz (IMP), “La Alianza 

Iniciativa de Mujeres Colombi-

anas por la Paz-IMP saluda los 

acercamientos de diálogo entre 

Gobierno y Guerrillas,” August 

28, 2012, http://www.humanas.

org.co/archivos/impcomuni-

cado.pdf.

208. Thania Paffenholz, “Can Inclusive 

Peace Processes Work? New 

Evidence from a Multi-Year 

Research Project,” Policy Brief 

(Geneva: Graduate Institute of 

International and Development 

Studies, April 2015). 

209. Rosa Emilia Salamanca, Personal 

Interview with Author, Airlie 

Conference Center, Warren
“Gender and the Role of Women 

in Colombia’s Peace Process” 42
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