HomeNewsBriefWhat Will New Sexual Violence Law Mean for Victims in Colombia's Conflict?
BRIEF

What Will New Sexual Violence Law Mean for Victims in Colombia's Conflict?

COLOMBIA / 19 JUN 2014 BY CAMILO MEJIA GIRALDO EN

Colombia's president has approved a law that makes acts of sexual violence committed during the country's long-standing armed conflict crimes against humanity, but questions remain regarding how this legislation will be applied to the benefit of the victims.

On June 18, President Juan Manuel Santos signed a law that gives this categorization to systematic or generalized sexual violence perpetrated in the context of the conflict, and allows an indefinite amount of time for the investigation and prosecution of these acts, reported El Tiempo. The legal norm complements Colombia's existing Victim's Law and provides a broad conception of sexual violence, including as crimes forced acts of sterilization and abortion.

Under the new norm, courts are also obligated to assume the credibility of a victim's testimony and state investigators are required to make serious efforts to find evidence proving the crime occurred.

Perpetrators of sexual violence will be prosecuted according to the same standards regardless of which armed group they belong to, meaning that any soldiers accused of acts of sexual violence would be tried in civilian court, rather than military tribunals.

According to Santos, 4,672 women have been recognized as victims of sexual violence in the context of the country's armed conflict.

InSight Crime Analysis

A United Nations report released in March (pdf) highlighted the use of sexual violence to establish territorial control and intimidate women as a means of social control in Colombia's armed conflict. Women and girls of Afro-Colombian descent have been particularly affected. Estimates of the incidence of this crime in Colombia -- including cases that were not officially reported -- range from 90,000 over the course of the conflict to 500,000 just in the past decade.

The new law meets international standards that require conflict-related sexual violence to be treated as a war crime or a crime against humanity, and is an obvious step in the right direction in a country where less than an estimated ten percent of sexual aggressors have been sentenced during the conflict.

SEE ALSO: Colombia News and Profiles

The law addresses several issues raised in a 2012 Amnesty International report (pdf) on sexual violence in Colombia, which identified inadequate political will and the specialized military justice system as obstacles to victims seeking justice.

However, the full implementation of the law -- which applies to crimes committed before its implementation and could theoretically involve the investigation of sexual violence cases spanning five decades -- will not be an easy task. Experiences in post-conflict processes carried out in other countries demonstrate that prosecuting perpetrators can be a long and difficult process.

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

EXTRADITION / 8 AUG 2022

A US request has led Guatemala to dismantle a prolific human smuggling ring that smuggled migrants to the United States.

BRAZIL / 8 AUG 2023

In the Amazon’s tri-border areas, illegal logging is expanding, due to the low cost of land, and few controls on…

BOLIVIA / 8 MAR 2023

InSight Crime reviews Latin America and the Caribbean's cocaine seizure date from 2022 to find out what it reveals about…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board 

22 SEP 2023

This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…