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Colombia: Women, Conflict- Related Sexual Violence and the Peace Process

Colombia: Women, Conflict-Related Sexual Violence and the Peace Process

Approximately just 18 per cent of women report sexual violence in Colombia, and the impunity rate for sexual-related crimes runs at more than 98 per cent. As a result, women victims of sexual violence harbour a sense of fear, powerlessness, frustration and insecurity. This report by ABC Colombia states that ending the almost total impunity for this crime will contribute to the potential success of a peace process in the country.
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Members of the Network of Women take part in march to protest against discrimination and violence against women in Bogota February 25, 2012. | Photo: REUTERS/Fredy Builes

June 2012: Thousands of Colombians marched in central Bogota on Sunday to protest against the rape and murder of a woman that has shocked the South American nation...

Cristina Plazas, Colombia's chief government adviser on women's equality and gender issues. Courtesy of the presidential office on women's equality.

April 2012: In Colombia, a country still beleaguered by conflict, violence has disrupted the lives of millions over the past five decades. But for the country’s women, the greatest enemy of all is the violence taking place at home, says Cristina Plazas, the country’s chief advisor on women’s equality.

Jineth Bedoya

Dec 2011: 11 years ago journalist Jineth Bedoya was kidnapped, drugged, and bundled into a car by a group of paramilitary soldiers just outside the prison gates. “It was a message to other journalists – ‘Shut up or this will happen to you.’