Colombia's History
An abundance of natural resources, its strategic location and historical and structural inequality has made Colombian territory fertile ground for conflict and violence since independence in 1819. Despite being South America's oldest democracy, Colombia has been beset by internal strife for over a hundred years since the War of a Thousand Days claimed 100,000 lives. Fifty years later, from 1946 to 1964, 300,000 people were killed in a period known as "La Violencia."
During the wave of revolutions that swept Latin America in the 1950's and 1960's, a left wing insurgency movement, known as Las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), emerged espousing a Marxist ideology and a plan to redistribute wealth and land. Today, over one third of FARC's forces are women. A few years later, El Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional (ELN) was formed by a group of intellectuals and students. In response to targeted attacks on their land, wealthy land-owners began to use paramilitaries to protect themselves against rebel incursions. By the early 1980's, these paramilitary groups converged into Las Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC).
In today's incarnation of the Colombian civil war, the FARC, the AUC, the ELN and the Colombian Army continue to fight for territory and control in many parts of Colombia. Colombian women have been at the center of every stage of unrest in Colombia, despite their pronounced absence from formal peace negotiations. Colombia has a relatively high number of women in elected positions. Six ministries in Alvaro Uribe's current government were headed by women, including the defense and foreign affairs portfolios, until two ministers resigned in November 2003. Colombia also boasts a strong, vibrant and diverse women's movement. Despite repeated attack, disappearances, kidnappings and threats perpetrated against women leaders, women's groups continue to organize, develop agendas for peace and lobby for their implementation.
In 2001, the United States pledged US$300 million to "Plan Colombia," an initiative to bring alternative development to coca growing regions and eliminate coca production through fumigation. The fumigation causes displacement, health affects and contaminates the soil, particularly affecting women's reproductive health and capacity to grow food and feed families. Female heads of households, female combatants, war widows and displaced women continue to face particular hardships as a result of the ongoing violence and instability. Indigenous and Afro-Colombian women are even more likely to fall victim to violence, assassination, harassment and displacement.
In 2005, the Colombian government passed the Justice and Peace Law or Law 975, which sets up the legal framework to demobilize 20,000 to 40,000 paramilitaries. While this is a step closer for peace in Colombia, currently there are no mechanisms in place, as part of this process, to ensure that crimes of sexual violence are reported and prosecuted.