HUMAN RIGHTS AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE TO WOMEN AND GIRLS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE ARMED CONFLICT IN COLOMBIA

INTRODUCTION

The armed conflict in Colombia is described by social agencies and non-governmental organizational as a humanitarian catastrophe, which apart from being a clear violation of human rights, resulting in a decline in the economic welfare of their victims, affecting their homes and incapacitating them to face future crises, in terms of access to basic services such as: health care, education, water, food, employment, access to services is further complicated by the consequences of the economic crisis and the low state investment . And in turn causes deep cultural effects especially when individuals or populations affected are forced to adopt new ways of the city after receiving forced displacement occur in short, the armed conflict is the biggest promoter of violations human rights to each of those victims. The armed conflict in violence against women not only because they favor exaggerate conditions for discriminatory conduct in society, but also because they generate behaviors directed specifically against him, as they are confronted with sexual violence, and these assault and rape in armed conflict tend to be seen as inevitable consequences thereof, as part of a war of all against all, but no evidence is continuing assaults and rapes that happen in civilian life extending in the internal war and that is the same model men against women continues to develop acts of domination of men over women. Armed conflicts affect women who are direct victims of violence, women mothers, partners or relatives of other victims, women fighters, women involved in demobilization and women involved or to be involved in resolving conflicts.

HUMAN RIGHTS AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE

To address the issue of human rights in Colombia and the violation of them women and girls who are victims of sexual violence in the context of armed conflict depart from a holistic understanding down a bit as human rights and offer guarantees civil society, understood that the purpose of human rights is to give protection to human agency, that is, to defend the human agents of oppression and abuse committed against others as enshrined in the Constitution in Article 2, which says: Are essential for the State to serve the community, promote the general prosperity and ensure the effectiveness of the principles, rights and duties enshrined in the Constitution. Authorities in Colombia are established to protect all persons residing in Colombia, in your life, honor, property, beliefs and other rights and freedoms, to ensure fulfillment of the social obligations of the state and individuals1 . However, his respect in everyday is a serious challenge for the Colombian state and, therefore, for the international bodies responsible for monitoring them, because since about 40 years, Colombia has experienced armed conflict that has produced a constant and systematic violation of human rights of the people in these groups outside the law find the FARC, ELN, AUC generate more violence and human rights make increasingly more violated, but most have been victims of this conflict are women, either by abduction or forced displacement among others, are forced to have sex with members of these groups to preserve their lives and that of their families. According to the data obtained from the first survey of prevalence of sexual violence in the context of armed conflict, the prevalence of sexual violence for the period 2001-2009 based on 407 municipalities with security forces, guerrillas, paramilitaries or other armed actors in Colombia2, was estimated at 17.58%, which means that during these nine years 489,687 women were direct victims of sexual violence. On average, 54,410 women were direct victims annually, 149 daily and 6 women every hour.
1

Constitution of Colombia 1991. Article 2 Oxfam International. Campaign: Rape and other violence. Take out my body of war. First prevalence survey: sexual violence against women in the context of the Colombian armed conflict. Colombia 2001-2009.
2

Women and girls have been the subject of a widespread and systematic sexual violence at the hands of all the authors of the long armed conflict in Colombia: paramilitary members of the security forces and guerrilla fighters. Although some women and girls have been assaulted for reasons other than gender, many have suffered sexual abuse and sexual exploitation just because they are women: to exploit them as sexual slaves, to sow terror in the communities and to facilitate the imposition of military control, for forcing entire families to flee their homes and allow the appropriation of their land, and to take revenge on adversaries. Women are also victims chosen as retaliation for their work as human rights defenders or as community and social leaders, or in an attempt to silence them when they report abuse. In recent years, human rights defenders and community leaders who work with communities subject to forced displacement, and women who fight for the return of stolen lands, have also been the target of threats and killings, mainly by paramilitary . Some of these women were also victims of sexual violence.

The violence inflicted on women in the context of armed conflict does not escape these plannings and is, in turn, reflects the inequality between men and women in areas such as politics, the quality and durability to rights as health, education, among others, in different contexts to assemble. In the Colombian society and stereotypes still exist patterns of domination of men over women that generate, in turn, clear forms of discrimination and violence. This situation is aggravated in the country's internal conflict arming, since in this context increases the instrumentalization of women and therefore reinforces the unequal status of inferiority and subordination to men, reflecting therefore stereotypes gender and cultural biases that exist in the Colombian population. According to the author rights Amerigo Incalcaterra most affected are: The rights of women participating in hostilities, especially sexual and reproductive rights, are particularly affected by the abuse of power within the illegal armed groups. Also persists in the FARC mandatory use of contraception and the

practice of forced abortion3. The rape and abuse of women and girls in armed conflict tend to be seen as inevitable consequences of the conflict, as part of a war of all against all, but no evidence is continuing assaults and rapes that happen in civilian life extending in the civil war and that is the same model men against women continues to develop acts of domination of men over women. In the public sphere, the objectification is from the conception of human interests in the private sphere is imposed male supremacy. Abuse, labor exploitation of women and marital rape rob women of their autonomy, their identity, their own self-determination and control, according to the author Mackinnon. Who says Catherine is there in the private sphere, which showed much inequality between men and women4. When women are oppressed and offended in private, privacy law protect the right of men. The lack of social recognition of women as equal in dignity and rights, gender stereotypes emphasizing discrimination against women, and the constant weight of the superiority of social values such as aggression, dominance and strength, culturally attributed to the male, increases the vulnerability of women, young women and girls from sexual violence. The shortage of analyzes and studies that account for the differential effects of sociopolitical violence on female results in obstacles to the definition of actions, projects and policies that address the needs of women in the conflict. The low register of cases and effect of social blindness contributing to an alarming impunity and encourages the continuation of these crimes, the same way the vulnerability of women against sexual violence potentiates given legitimacy war that has been awarded to the appropriation of women's bodies. While sexual violence in armed confrontation is direct violence; cultural organization patterns, socioeconomic and political make women become victims of such abuse, which is an example of structural violence. Notwithstanding the absence of records, it is undeniable that women, young women and girls suffer and have suffered direct and indirect effects of the confrontation in the different stages of our history of sociopolitical violence; under these circumstances have been victims of variety violent actions in relation to their gender.
3 4

INCALCATERRA, Amerigo. Human rights situation of women in Colombia. Op cit., P. 3.

MACKINNON, Catherine. Op, Cit. p.88

Has made explicit the close relationship between local armed conflicts and the violation of sexual and reproductive rights, which could well appointed as the rights that every woman and man have on his being, on their bodies and their desires5

In Colombia there are special provisions that protect women and girls from sexual violence in armed conflict. Among them, the Criminal Code in Title II, Chapter I, Book II special part of the law 890 of 2004, which provides that the general condition of criminalization is that such crimes will develop into a conflict arming, mentoring legal rights as life, personal integrity, individual freedom, sexual freedom, among others.

The reality is that although it reaches a legislatively protect women and girls against this crime, impunity and lack of compensation to victims becomes apparent. The High Commissioner, in his report in 2004 said as the state's response insufficient for protection, investigation and punishment of these facts and points concern the increase in cases of sexual violence without prosecute6 . Similarly, the implementation of public policies that seek to restore the damage caused to different groups of women who are or were immersed in the armed conflict.

In this vein, we can say that there may be a set of rules that protect women and girls from abuse committed against them in times of war and peace, but although it has no legal instruments has been done so far to curb the abuses described or hold accountable the perpetrators. Direct promotion and distribution strategies for women victims are recognized as such and recognize their rights to truth, justice and reparation, overflowing the author who committed the facts whether Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia FARC.

Range Barrett, Juanita, "The appropriation of women's bodies, a war strategy, in: Journal In Other Words. Bogot, No. 9, (August-December), 2001, p. 98. 6 Ibd. Page 6

The strategies that are required for the right to reparations are7:

First, avoid

stigmatization and return the good name of the women who have been raped in their sexuality: In Colombia, despite the work of NGOs 's still have the notion that sexual violence is the fault of the victim, who may be offered, or caused the perpetrators, or something they would do, the credibility, character or predisposition to sexual availability of a victim can be deduced from the sexual nature of prior or subsequent conduct of the victim (Rules of Procedure and Evidence of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court). Second, the remedies must consider in the case of women, empowerment processes and strengthening of the social fabric and community organizations weakened and sometimes completely destroyed by armed conflict, as well as guarantees for the formation of new associations and organizations to participate in the different stages of the country. Third, public policy is needed to correct the historical discrimination that women have been victims in Colombia, and have been supportive to new victimizations, Fourth, build and campaigns to encourage the reporting of sexual violence and other violence against women, including programs for spreading awareness about the types of violence that can have on the body and life of women; these strategies to diminish the tendency for women to be victims only by the loss of one of their families and recognize themselves as victims before the breach of any of its rights. Among other over there but what if the State should consider, is to be based on recognition of the violations and particularly sexual violence as a crime muted, difficult acceptance by offenders in this sense officials responsible for the collection of evidence by the commission should investigate these facts so seen around the list of offenses accepted by the killers.

The legislation in force in Colombia, has been recognized as victims entitled to truth, justice and reparation to those who were victims of the AUC, leaving aside the other victims of armed conflict also has these rights, even if their enforcement is done by different means. For victims of the AUC process is supplied by Law 975 of 2005, for victims of guerrilla groups through Law 782 of 2002.

CONCLUSIONS

Study the war from the perspective of violence on women because of their sex does not imply in any way depoliticize it is rather assign these stark realities lived most of the time between fear and silence, a place public. You fight your invisibility, to some extent tolerated and permitted by the state and society, to take from the private to the public the experiences of women in war as victims of rape and sexual slavery but, also, the experiences of women in the rebel ranks as those working in everyday scenarios in building peace. The aim is to re-politicize the analysis of violence, to show that she can not get rid of their cultural representations and their gender implications. The way to give the real suffering passes all its political potential, among other factors, by questioning the war rather than as a matter of armies, weapons and number of dead from the same experiences of violence it produces. We conclude that in the nineties of the last century there was a marked change in the international approach to address violence against women, particularly sexual violence. However, the effective implementation of these legal remedies faces serious obstacles, such as fear of retaliation that deters victims to testify, or the lack of political will to assimilate mass rape and related crimes as a form of genocide. At this point, though abound rules protecting women in times of conflict, still scarce in certain states will enforce them. Urge that offenders recognize all types of violence committed against women as crimes of humanity understood in this sense not only acts committed against women "civilians" but against women is part of the illegal armed groups, such as rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, forced abortion, forced contraception, the spread of sexually transmitted infections intentionally trafficking in embryos and the other devoted to the various international frameworks , so that the woman does not continue watching as a tool that can be used by humans without recognizing the rights they have and not be respected socially. Consequently, it is necessary to promote the empowerment of women that are creating opportunities for actors involved in mediating conflicts, reconciliation and reconstruction of

their communities. Strengthening existing experiences as Peace Communities, the Constituent women and other grassroots organizations.

HUMAN RIGHTS AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE WOMEN AND GIRLS IN THE CONTEXT OF ARMED CONFLICT IN COLOMBIA

ENGLISH

TEACHER: EDUARDO SILVA

PRESENTED BY: MONICA PUENTES

UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION MONSERRATE FACULTY OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC SOCIAL WORK DAY VIII BOGOTA 14 NOVEMBER 2012