WUNRN
COLOMBIA - IMPUNITY FOR SEXUAL
VIOLENCE REACHES 98% - INTERNATIONAL FORUM
(Photo: Expreso
By Oliver Sheldon – May 2,
2014
An
international forum on sexual violence held in the Colombian capital of Bogota revealed that impunity for sexual violence in the
country has reached 98%.
Organized
by the Norwegian Refugee Council and El Tiempo newspaper, the forum
revealed that although more than 90,000 cases of sexual against women have
been reported during 50-year armed conflict, less than 10% of the
perpetrators of the crimes have been sentenced.
Held
in late April, the “Dialogues in White-Purple” (Dialogos en Blanco
–Purpura) forum on sexual violence heard testimonies of victims, along
with discussions by panelists from Yale University, the International Center
for Transitional Justice, and the Organization of American States (OAS) among
others. Ambassadors from
A Lack of Attention to Women in Conflict
A
number of panelists voiced concern on issues of continuing violence towards
women from armed groups taking part of the armed conflict, including
paramilitary groups.
The
director of the Colombian human and woman rights advocacy group Human
Corporation of Colombia (HCC), Adrian Benjumena, noted the lack of attention
to women in conflict, El Tiempo reported.
Maria
Emma Wills, coordinator of the Gender and Memory project of the Historical
Memory project — a government-financed research group dealing specifically with
the armed conflict — said that the research and field work has shown that
“paramilitaries tend to commit mass rapes, with ferocious cruelty,”
and added that an important step is to investigate the training of men in
the conflict.
According
to El Tiempo, the duty of the justice system and the process of recovery for
victims of sexual violence was also discussed.
Director
of the National Victims Unit Paula Gaviria said “the challenge is great
but the commitment is present.”
Christian
Visnes, country director of the Norwegian Refugee Council, stated that
“it is a huge challenge, because sexual violence against girls and women is
happening in
UN Report on Sexual Violence
A
recent report by the UN on conflict-related sexual violence highlighted
the crimes of sexual violence committed in conflict zones along with
recommendations to national governments on how to reduce impunity.
The
report defines sexual violence as, “rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution,
forced pregnancy, forced sterilization and any other form of sexual violence of
comparable gravity.”
Regarding
The
report highlighted the use of sexual violence as a tool with which to
force the displacement of civilians
so as to gain access to natural resources, and as a strategy to “assert
territorial control, to intimidate women leaders and human rights defenders and
to intimidate the civilian population as a method of social control.”
Victims of sexual assault represent
17.7% of Colombia’s displaced - These points are of particular
concern in a resource-rich country such as
History’s Oldest and Least Condemned Crime
The
staggering impunity rate of 98% outlined in the forum is a result of
a number of different factors.
Amrita
Kapur of the Gender Justice Program for the
According
to Kapur, another significant factor is the underreporting of the crime
based on “women’s fear of stigmatization” as well as the “negative attitudes
[and] behavior of the authorities they will report to, particularly by males
who have not been trained in how to deal with vulnerable victims.”
She
added that impunity lies with the fact that there is “confusion about making a
declaration for the purposes of reparation, and making a denunciation to
initiate a prosecution. Often a woman will do the former, not realizing
that it does not initiate a prosecution.”
Some
survivors report having been displaced and raped repeatedly after having
reported crimes committed against them.
There
can also be issues during investigations whereby officials handling a case,
“are unlikely to obtain all the details that would substantiate the relevant
sexual violence charges.”
In
a press conference in April, the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence
in Conflict Zainab Bangura declared that “perpetrators should never walk free
because victims are too afraid to testify, or they are threatened with reprisal
and violence,” and conclude by labelling sexual violence as “history’s oldest
and least condemned crime.”
The
recent UN report urged the Colombian authorities “to ensure that legislative
and policy developments, including the Colombian legal framework for peace,
contribute to the fulfilment of survivors’ rights to truth, justice and
reparation for the full range of violations associated with conflict-related
sexual violence.”
“No” to violence against women
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