I. Gender-based Violence and Displacement

You hear that in Colombia, the laws are beautiful, and then when you learn the truth, you realize it’s nothing more than words on a page.

—Olga M., displaced woman and victim of gender-based violence, Cali, May 2012

Gender-based violence is not unique to displaced women and girls in Colombia, but it is particularly acute for displaced women and girls. Available data strongly suggests it is more prevalent than for the non-displaced population. Studies (described in more detail below) have found displaced women experience more frequent incidents of rape and other physical abuse by spouses and others compared to the non-displaced. Extreme levels of socio-economic disadvantage mark the lives of the majority of displaced women and girls. This both increases their risk and constitutes a challenge to accessing government services when they are victims of gender-based violence.

Conditions of Displacement

Along with Sudan and Iraq, Colombia has one of the largest populations of internally displaced people in the world—roughly 10 percent of the total population by most estimates.[5] Cumulative estimates of the size of Colombia’s displaced population range from approximately 3.9 million[6] people registered by the government since 1997, to almost 5.5 million people reported by a prominent Colombian NGO since 1985.[7] The latter estimate includes individuals who have not been registered with the government’s registry of internally displaced persons (formerly the Registro Único de la Población Desplazada-RUPD, and now combined with the government’s registry of victims in general under the Registro Único de Víctimas created by Law 1448 of 2011).

Although government figures indicate that the rates of new displacements have declined in recent years, they continue to be high: the government registered 143,116[8] people as newly displaced in 2011, while the respected Colombian civil society organization, CODHES, reported 259.146[9] newly displaced the same year.

Studies have found that displaced individuals tend to have lower rates of education and literacy than the general population.[10] One study in Valle del Cauca department, for example, found that in 2008 and 2009 over 50 percent of displaced women in the region had received five years of schooling or less, with six percent having received no formal education at all.[11] This compares to an average of 10 years of school for the general population ages 20 to 34 for this department.[12] Less schooling means higher rates of illiteracy. The government’s Department for Social Prosperity estimates that the rate of illiteracy for displaced heads of households is about 20 percent.[13] This compares to the national total illiteracy rate of 6.3 percent for persons over 15 years of age.[14]

Indigenous and Afro-Colombian individuals constitute a large number of the displaced population—potentially creating another level of discrimination for certain displaced persons. The government estimates that, as of November 2011, 105,818 registered internally displaced people were indigenous and 383,924 were “black or Afro-Colombian”.[15] However, civil society organizations estimate the true number to be much higher, with the discrepancy perhaps due to lower registration rates among indigenous and Afro-Colombians. The Constitutional Court-mandated Monitoring Committee for Public Policy on Forced Displacement estimates that in 2010, 22 percent of the internally displaced were Afro-Colombian and 6.1 percent indigenous.[16] Moreover, while government figures show that the national trend has been to fewer displacements since 2006, the internal displacement rates for Afro-Colombians reached its highest levels in 2007 and 2008.[17]

The Monitoring Committee found in 2010 that only 11 percent of displaced persons with employment earned the monthly minimum wage set by the government, and almost 60 percent received less than half of that amount, jumping to 68 percent for internally displaced women.[18] Displaced individuals are also more than twice as likely to live below the poverty line as the general population. According to the committee, in 2010, 97.6 percent of registered displaced families and 96 percent of non-registered families had income below the poverty line, which compared to an estimated 45 percent of the general population (from the same study and date).[19] The number of extreme poor among displaced populations is even more striking, with nearly 79 percent of registered internally displaced families living below the extreme poverty line as of 2010, compared to only 17 percent of the general population. The rate of extreme poverty among female-headed displaced households was even higher, at 86 percent.[20]

Living conditions are also difficult for many displaced families. While the government has subsidized—and in some cases built—housing for displaced populations in certain cities, many displaced families live in cramped, shoddy housing far from schools, health clinics, food markets, and town centers. Just 5.5 percent of displaced households registered by the government live in decent housing, according to a 2009 study.[21]

Over half of those registered as displaced in Colombia are female: adults, adolescents, and girls.[22] About 50 percent of displaced households are female-headed, double the national average.[23] Many of the displaced women and girls with whom Human Rights Watch spoke identified themselves as heads of their households, yet struggled to find formal employment in their new cities. Many had insecure and low-paid informal jobs as domestic workers, street vendors, artisans, or recyclers.[24] One woman said she engaged in sex work to support her family.[25]

In addition to the daily challenges of displacement, displaced women and girls are at high risk for an additional trauma: gender-based violence. Gender-based violence is a risk for all women in Colombia, but the problem is more acute for displaced women and girls.

Scope of Gender-Based Violence in Colombia Generally, and Related to the Conflict and Displacement

Gender-based violence is a pervasive problem throughout Colombia. A government-sponsored national demographic and health survey, La Encuesta Nacional de Demografía y Salud or ENDS, is conducted every five years by Profamilia (a Colombian health organization) in partnership with the government and international agencies, such as USAID. The survey covers about 50,000 households and includes questions about intra-familial and sexual violence in the population generally—finding high rates of violence.

From 2005 to 2011, the National Institute for Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences (INMLCF) conducted almost 420,000 forensic exams on victims of intra-familial violence.[26] Along with the health sector, the INMLCF conducted almost 19,000 exams in 2011 of female victims of sexual violence, up from less than 17,000 in 2010. According to the INMLCF, the total rate of cases of sexual violence increased 11 percent from 2010 to the highest rate in ten years; 49 cases for every 100,000 inhabitants.[27]

Neither the ENDS nor INMLCF distinguish whether respondents or victims are displaced or whether the violence was linked to the conflict. The INMLCF has acknowledged that little is known regarding the full dimension of sexual violence suffered by women and girls in connection with the conflict and displacement.[28] The National Institute of Health began a public health reporting program in June 2012.[29] The program requires medical facilities to report treatment of cases of sexual or intra-familial violence as a public health problem, similar to reporting mechanisms required for certain communicable diseases. The data are disaggregated by cases related to the conflict.[30]

While the magnitude of gender-based violence linked to the conflict and displacement in Colombia is difficult to approximate due to underreporting and gaps in government data collection, civil society organizations and independent agencies have undertaken their own studies. A body of independent research strongly suggests a high rate of conflict-related sexual violence and that displaced women and girls face a greater risk of gender-based violence than other sectors of the population. Notably, a 2011 Profamilia and USAID study that looked specifically at the sexual and reproductive health of two marginalized communities─poor and displaced—found higher rates of intra-familial violence and sexual violence among displaced women than was reported in the national ENDS survey of the general population.[31] The survey found that almost 48 percent of displaced women who were or had been married or partnered reported having suffered violence at the hands of their intimate partners.[32] Over nine percent of displaced women reported being raped by someone other than their partner.[33]  This contrasts with the 37 percent of women in the general population who were or had been married or partnered reported in the 2010 ENDS survey having suffered physical violence at the hands of their partners, and almost 10 percent reported that the form of violence was rape.[34] Nearly six percent of the women of the general population said they had been raped by someone other than their husband or current partner.[35]

The most expansive study of conflict-related violence—looking at rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, and enforced sterilization—was a survey by Intermón Oxfam in collaboration with national women’s civil society organizations, including Casa de la Mujer, Sisma Mujer, Ruta Pacífica de las Mujeres, Fundsarep, and Vamos Mujer.[36] Together they conducted the first-ever prevalence study regarding sexual violence against women in the context of the conflict in the years 2001 to 2009, based on interviews with 2,693 women. This study, released in 2011, found that in 407 municipalities in which armed groups were present, 17.6 percent of women—that is almost half a million women—were direct victims of sexual violence.[37] The sample is randomized and systematic, identifying a small number of municipalities for the survey, but then the statistics can be extrapolated to the broader population living in the 407 municipalities in the study area. This is slightly higher than estimates from a smaller 2008 study by Colombia’s ombudsman’s office that was based on a convenience sample covering four municipalities and about 2,000 respondents, which found that almost 16 percent of the survey participants indicated they had been victims of sexual violence.[38]

Other studies on specific departments or municipalities have also found that displaced women and girls face high rates of gender-based violence. For example, a small 2009-2010 study of 98 displaced women in Valle del Cauca department found that 38 percent of respondents reported being victims of forced sex and 51 percent reported being victims of sexual assault.[39] Another study of 187 women from Bogotá and Bolívar, Chocó, Cundinamarca, Tolima, and Valle de Cauca departments found that 50 to 88 percent of women in some regions had been victims of intra-familial violence since their displacement.[40] The same study found that up to 58 percent of women in these regions had been victims of sexual violence since their displacement.[41]

Displacement Exacerbates the Effects of Gender-Based Violence

Any victim of gender-based violence in Colombia may experience obstacles in seeking justice or accessing services after violence, but displaced women and girls face distinct barriers by virtue of being displaced. The Constitutional Court has found at least 18 different facets of forced displacement that impact women differently.[42] The court identified structural patterns of gender-based violence and discrimination exacerbated by displacement, as well as specific problems faced by women due to their increased vulnerability that do not affect women who are not displaced.[43] It also found that displacement itself makes access to health care harder to achieve.[44] The UN Special Representative on the human rights of internally displaced persons noted in his report on Colombia that domestic violence and other forms of gender-based violence rise sharply in conflict and, he expects, in displacement as well.[45]

The difficult conditions of displacement combined with the high-risk of violence make the need for services for displaced women and girls particularly acute. However, the increased vulnerabilities of displaced women and girls make access to these services difficult. Displaced women and girls often arrive in new urban areas with few belongings and no connections. Ana Maria, a 27-year-old woman displaced to Bogotá alone with her small children, told Human Rights Watch, “If you are given 24 hours to leave [your home], you don’t want to take 24 hours to leave. You leave with what’s on your back.”[46] Often, they settle in marginalized communities at the edge of urban centers. Some face stigmatization for being identified as displaced.[47] 

When displaced women and girls need access to government services in Colombia, they struggle to reach them. A UN treaty body reviewing Colombia’s performance under CEDAW found that displaced female heads of household are “disadvantaged and vulnerable in regard to access to health, education, social services, employment and other economic opportunities, as well as at risk of all forms of violence.”[48] As a representative of Profamilia who coordinates health programs for displaced women explained to Human Rights Watch, “if a displaced woman is the head of household, lives alone in a community at the margins of a large city, has no money and has six children, it is difficult to go to the hospital.”[49] Moreover, fear of more abuse is more likely to stop these women from reporting cases of gender-based violence to authorities.[50]