IV. Obstacles to Justice after Gender-Based Violence

You can look for justice, but there isn’t any when they threaten vengeance on your children.

— Ximena A., Bogotá, February 24, 2012

The Colombian government has made major strides in terms of the justice and law enforcement sector response to gender-based violence, including through the creation of specialized units for integrated care for victims of gender-based violence, known as CAVIF for victims of intra-familial violence and CAIVAS for victims of sexual violence.[190]

Yet, Human Rights Watch identified a range of obstacles displaced women and girls continue to face when seeking justice after gender-based violence, including mistreatment by authorities, evidentiary challenges, poor referrals, women’s economic barriers, and fear of reporting. 

Human Rights Watch also saw how limited state resources created unique barriers for victims of gender-based violence. Justice officials described the paralyzing effect of their overwhelming workloads and insufficient resources to handle gender-based crimes. Overworked prosecutors exist throughout Colombia—assigned to all types of crimes. But for prosecutors of gender-based crimes, it is easy to de-prioritize cases—and victims—when they come with no physical evidence, in favor of cases where such strong evidence already exists. Physical evidence in gender-based crimes is often difficult to obtain, and for good reason, Colombia’s laws permit investigations to be initiated without such evidence. Yet, both women and officials said many prosecutors set aside gender-based violence cases without such evidence. This leads to almost guaranteed impunity for these types of crimes, and to women and girls giving up on justice.

For most of the women with whom Human Rights Watch spoke who had filed a criminal complaint, the biggest problem encountered with the justice sector was that once they filed their complaint, they never heard back. They did not know if their cases had been archived or if investigations were proceeding. They did know, however, that the perpetrators went unpunished.

Mistreatment by Authorities

Mistreatment of victims by law enforcement and justice officials undermines measures introduced by the Colombian government through its laws and policies on gender-based violence. For some displaced women and girls, mistreatment constitutes a major barrier to justice. Victims and advocates recounted to Human Rights Watch instances of mistreatment by law enforcement and justice officials. One women’s rights leader in Cartagena, a victim of violence herself, sees little progress in the treatment of victims by prosecutors:

Twelve years I have been accompanying women to the prosecutor’s office. How the women are treated depends on the official. Some always ask the same questions—how were you dressed, how did you provoke the perpetrator. There is no support in those questions; no humanity.[191]

Ximena A. felt like she was not treated with dignity when she reported being raped in 2009. She told Human Rights Watch that she was asked “stupid” and “offensive” questions throughout her interview with the prosecutor in Bogotá. For example, she said, “I was raped by members of a a paramilitary group, but [the prosecutor] kept asking if my husband hits me.”[192] While the prosecutor may have been trying to screen for domestic violence in the home, Ximena claims he did not ask her questions about the actual perpetrators or the sexual violence. Instead, his questioning focused on her relationship with her husband. It made her feel uncomfortable and that the prosecutor did not believe her claim.

Several victims of gender-based violence told Human Rights Watch that law enforcement and justice officials blamed them for the abuse. Advocates who accompany women and victims themselves told Human Rights Watch that prosecutors sometimes asked humiliating questions about past sexual history and past partners. They also asked questions in some cases about what the victim was wearing and what she did to provoke the attacks. All these types of questions reflect an attitude that a primary element of gender-based violence is force, rather than a lack of consent.

In one case of intra-familial violence, a prosecutor told Dolores G., a 38-year-old displaced woman living in Cartagena, that she was asking for the abuse. Dolores described to Human Rights Watch how her husband beat her for years, starting in 2003. She said that when he started threatening her son in 2003, she reported the abuse to a prosecutor, who blamed her. She explained:

My husband also maltreated my oldest son and called him bad, I told him to hit me instead. He did…. When I arrived to the prosecutor, he read my statement. He said, “You said ‘hit me,’ and he did. What do you want me to do?”[193]

The physical abuse continued until she left him permanently in 2011.Her negative experience in 2003 stopped her from seeking subsequent help from the justice sector. During this time, she did not return to file additional criminal complaints.

Another woman said fear of mistreatment by government officials stopped her from following through on an attempt to report gender-based violence to prosecutors. Clara V. went to the prosecutor’s office to file a complaint about sexual violence, but did not go through with it. As she waited to be seen by a prosecutor she heard other people in the office talking about her and why she was there. She realized that the administrators who she had first approached in order to see a prosecutor must have disclosed why she was there, breaching her confidentiality. “I came to the prosecutor, but I didn’t denounce. I couldn’t face the public humiliation in front of everyone, with insults, and so I decided not to do it.”[194]

Human Rights Watch received information from advocates about cases where justice officials chastised women for reporting intra-familial violence without having any visible injuries. In one recent case in Medellín, a woman arrived at a Justice House to report physical abuse from her husband. According to the advocates, the officials there told her that she couldn’t be suffering from intra-familial violence because she didn’t have any bruises.[195] When the woman sought support from a local women’s rights group, she pleaded, “Do I have to wait until he kills me before the government believes me?”

Advocates also reported that family commissioners, who handle many civil law aspects of the justice system’s response to domestic violence, sometimes also blame victims. One women’s rights leader who accompanies victims to file complaints explained, “If you do file a formal complaint about [it] at the family commissioners, they say, ‘He hit you because you must have done something.’”[196] Miludes N., a 14-year-old girl displaced to Bogotá, also described mistreatment by officials at the family commissioner’s office. Miludes reported to the office that an unknown assailant had threatened and groped her and followed her home in 2011. When she and her mother reported the case, Miludes felt that the officials were insensitive to her: talking over her, not listening to her, and being dismissive of the fear she felt after the incident. She told Human Rights Watch that the official there was disrespectful. “They treated us like we were less than them,” she said. “It felt uncomfortable and bad.[197]

Women also described to Human Rights Watch misconduct by criminal investigators. Andrea S., for example, was interviewed by investigators handling her friend Analia C.’s rape case in 2012. Andrea says that the investigators asked her questions about her friend’s social behavior and drinking habits, and then posed a question regarding whether she believed her friend was sexually desirable enough to have been raped: “The investigators said to me, ‘But she doesn’t have that good of a body.’ … You have to be a model to be raped”.[198]

Andrea told Human Rights Watch that the same investigators also showed her a newspaper clipping of the victim and asked her how her friend could be smiling if she had been raped.[199] The investigators asked other friends and family similar questions and told them that Analia had been raped, breaching confidentiality.[200] Some, including Analia’s mother, learned about the rape this way, according to Andrea.

Human Rights Watch heard from some women’s rights advocates and victims that forensic examiners sometimes ask inappropriate and abusive questions. In one case Human Rights Watch saw evidence of this on the forensic examination report for a rape victim in Bogotá in 2011. Included in the report were questions about the date of the victim’s first sexual experience, the number of partners she had had in her lifetime, and her last sexual encounter prior to the rape. These questions violate INMLCF protocol and are irrelevant to the investigation.[201] Nevertheless, the report, including the answers to these questions, is now evidence in her case that could be used in open court.

Dr. Pedro Emilio Morales Martinez, sub-director of Forensic Services at INMLCF, admits that not every examination is completed according to protocol, and identifies areas where the INMLCF could improve:

We can’t deny that some [forensic doctors] don’t complete the forms as they should. We do monitor quality of services, but it is difficult to review 100 percent of cases. We have things we need to address.… Particularly, we need to work with people who don’t see these types of cases a lot.… Rural zones are particularly difficult.[202]

The attorney general’s office has taken steps to address potential misbehavior by its employees: circulating a memorandum in December 2011 to all employees that addresses the need to change the mentality of employees in relation to crimes involving gender-based violence, establishing what is appropriate behavior toward victims, and urging respect for their privacy and dignity.[203] The memo recognizes that employees’ prejudices could generate inadequate service, and therefore impunity.[204] It requires that employees take into account the particular circumstances of each victim; this would include whether they were displaced. While the effect of the memorandum on practice within the attorney general’s office is still to be determined, an official working at the Center for Care of Victims in Medellín believes that the memorandum has had a positive effect on what justice officials say in an official capacity. However, she sees prejudices continuing in less visible ways:

In every sector—police, prosecutors, public ministries, judges—there are people who think that the woman is at fault. They think she was asking for it.… It isn’t what is said officially, on the record, so it’s hard to prove. It is in the hallways, in passing [that these prejudices come out]. We have to work on that part.[205]

Evidentiary Challenges

Several victims told Human Rights Watch that they believed prosecutors and investigators did not take their cases seriously if they lacked physical evidence of gender-based violence. Based on their interaction with justice officials, these women and girls believed prosecutors did not consider their testimony constituted sufficiently strong evidence.

Prosecutors confirmed to Human Rights Watch that they can initiate investigations without physical evidence, and can rely on other admissible evidence such as witness testimony and other forms of evidence, beyond physical evidence.[206] Prosecutors should not determine viability of cases solely by whether physical evidence exists. A gender advisor in the attorney general’s office told Human Rights Watch that the type of evidence used is particular to each investigation and case: “There needs to be probative evidence, but that can be different in each case. For some, it may be the INMLCF report, for others the testimony of the victim may be strongest.”[207] The perception by victims that prosecutors will only proceed if provided with physical evidence, however, discourages victims from coming forward in instances where there is no physical evidence.  Ximena, for example, told Human Rights Watch, “[The prosecutors] don’t treat us with credibility … when you go to them, you have to bring your own proof.”[208] For example, Socorro’s 2009 rape case was archived because there was no physical evidence, and she did not know who her attackers were.[209]

Several victims blamed the absence of physical evidence on the government, reporting that officials had delayed referrals for forensic exams so long in some cases that no physical proof remained. Dolores G. said that in 2003 after their displacement to Cartagena, her husband beat her severely leaving visible bruises on her face. Prosecutors referred her to the INMLCF for an exam, but she says she was turned away two times before being seen almost three weeks after sustaining the injuries. Little evidence remained. She said,

I had to go to IML to prove I had been hit. My face was red and it hurt me. On Monday I went to IML, but they didn't attend to me. They gave me a new appointment for 8 days later. When I went back, the doctor wasn’t there, there was an emergency. I had another appointment to come back in five or six days. When I was examined, the doctor poked at my face. “There is nothing. You are here for nothing.”... You can imagine; I will never go back.[210]

Dolores remained in the abusive relationship for over six more years.

In 2009 Ximena A. was forced to conduct oral sex on multiple perpetrators in Bogotá at gunpoint.[211] She did not delay in reporting the rape, but says that authorities scheduled her forensic exam several days after the attack. By then there was no semen or other fluids left in her mouth. Frustrated because she believes the prosecutor did not take her case seriously without this evidence, Ximena told Human Rights Watch,

Scientific evidence from the IML is the only proof the prosecutor believes to start an investigation. But the IML doesn’t have all the means to tell the truth. If I was hit in the face, but they don’t see blood or a bruise? What? Nothing happens. If there is no inflammation of the vagina? Same. What if he used a condom? Same. For me, it took so long to get to the IML, there was no proof left.[212]

Analia C., twice a victim of sexual violence in 2012, reported both crimes immediately. In January 2012, she and her advocates at the national ombudsman’s office said she was not seen by INMLCF until 10 days after her latest rape.[213] No physical evidence remained.[214]

A lawyer that represents displaced victims of gender-based violence in Cali and Buenaventura recounted a recent case she had covered of a girl victim of sexual violence. The girl was raped on a Friday; the police were called and the perpetrator was caught. The girl had bruises and bites on her body. Because it was a Friday, she did not receive an appointment to see the INMLCF until the following Monday; she tried to follow directions and not wash, but by Monday all of the proof had disappeared. “There was no semen. The vagina wasn’t inflamed. There was no proof,” the lawyer told Human Rights Watch. The case was closed. The delay in exam has caused other problems as well. The lawyer said the girl is receiving psycho-social support because she was severely affected by her treatment. “After this, she felt so dirty,” the lawyer said. “She was really affected by having to wait to be seen … she was re-victimized by the inefficiency of the referral pathways.”[215]

In other cases, the attack was carried out in a way that left no physical trace. Clara V. was a victim of sexual violence in 2004 and has received numerous threats of more sexual violence since then. She has reported these crimes. One of the cases was closed for lack of physical proof. She explained, “The case was closed … there was a lack of proof, no witnesses, but how can you [the victim] have the names; how can you know everything ... This is the function of [the investigators].”[216] Without a thorough investigation, Clara believed the threats would continue. Indeed, Clara continues to receive threats, and in October 2012, an unknown man followed her home, but she was able to get inside before he could speak to her.

Isabel P. said a man in Medellín with ties to armed groups sexually assaulted, groped, manhandled, and threatened her in late 2011, but there was no penile penetration or ejaculation.[217] She said prosecutors and investigators never seemed to take her case seriously because of the absence of physical evidence.

Ximena A., who works with survivors of sexual violence, said she knows of several cases where perpetrators used condoms while raping their victims, leaving no evidence behind.[218] A physician who conducts forensic exams on victims of sexual violence in Medellín showed Human Rights Watch data from examinations conducted in the month prior to the interview; less than 10 percent of exams exposed physical evidence.[219]

Suzanna M., a 31-year-old displaced woman living in Medellín, reported intra-familial violence to prosecutors in October 2011.[220] She said her ex-husband—a police officer— stalked her and threatened physical harm to her and their children; she believes he played a role in the recent killing of her boyfriend. She did not have any injuries or other physical evidence, and without this, she believes her case is not being investigated. Suzanna says she has not been given any information regarding progress on the investigation into her case. She told Human Rights Watch, “Since the declaration, there has been a complete lack of information. Perhaps they don’t know how to give people information.”[221]

Intra-familial Violence as a Private Offense during 2011 and 2012

A significant obstacle to the successful investigation and prosecution of the crime of intra-familial violence was created in 2011, with the passage of Law 1453/2011.[222] This law amended portions of the criminal procedure code, including the reclassification of “offenses that require complaint” (delitos que requieren querella), meaning a victim must file a criminal complaint for a prosecution to begin, as opposed to ex officio offenses, which prosecutors can pursue without a complaint.[223] For over a year, intra-familial violence was considered an offense that requires complaint (unless the victim is a minor), though previously it was considered an ex officio crime.[224]

Fortunately, lawmakers fought this reform. In November 2011, Senator Alexandra Moreno introduced legislation, with support from the Congressional Women’s Caucus, to once again classify intra-familial violence as an ex officio offense. The bill passed and went into force in July 2012.[225] The bill not only removes intra-familial violence from the list of private offenses, it also states an affirmative mandate that justice authorities will investigate ex officio every single case of violence against women where officials have knowledge of the commission of such crime.[226]

While it is certainly a positive step that third parties and justice officials can initiate cases, and maintain cases even when victims drop charges (out of fear or for other reasons), more than a year passed during which victims of intra-familial violence were left vulnerable to pressure and threats to drop their cases. Advocates told Human Rights Watch that this change was particularly detrimental to cases involving displaced women. Many of them are economically dependent on their abusers, fearful of authorities, and face continuing threats, all of which may prevent them from filing and maintaining criminal charges.[227]

If a victim dropped the case during the period of time Law 1453/2011 was in force for intra-familial violence, the prosecutor’s office dropped the case as well. One prosecutor told Human Rights Watch that he had seen cases where perpetrators of domestic violence had threatened victims to drop the complaints, or threatened their children to force their mothers to do so.[228] Extra steps may need to be taken by the attorney general’s office to review archived cases of intra-familial violence for instances where victims remain in danger, and re-initiate cases. This is important because, as the prosecutor from Cartagena explained (while the law was still in force) “[intra-familial violence as a private crime] diminishes the progress under Law 1257/2008. What’s the difference between domestic violence and murder? Because that’s [how this violence] can end … if a woman drops her case....”[229]

Limited State Resources

A few government officials complained there are not enough resources for the successful investigation and prosecution of sexual or intra-familial violence crimes. There are simply too many cases and too few prosecutors, investigators, and forensic examiners. Others said their offices could not adequately support victims without investing in psychological support.

An official working at a CAIVAS told Human Rights Watch: “The problem is that justice is slow. There are lots of cases, and few officials and prosecutors. We are too few.”[230]

In Cartagena, two prosecutors work on all the intra-familial violence cases. They have 4,000 cases between them. Each prosecutor has to conduct both the investigations and prepare the cases for court. One prosecutor working in the office lamented that at times “we are paralyzed” by the amount of work.[231] The CAVIF in Bogotá has about 1,600 cases of intra-familial violence reported each month, and 19 prosecutors working on the cases. Many of the cases are closed after couples reconcile, but prosecutors continue to carry high caseloads.[232] An employee at the CAIVAS in Bogotá gave Human Rights Watch an unofficial estimate that they currently have 11,000 open cases, and about 37 prosecutors covering those cases.[233] The high case load prosecutors must carry reinforces the pressure for pursuing only cases where physical evidence exists.

INMLFC resources are also limited geographically. In 30 major cities, the INMLCF examination process for victims of sexual or intra-familial violence functions relatively well. But in the rural municipalities, students fulfilling their social service requirements often perform forensic medical examinations. Some have had little training specifically on gender-based violence. One representative of a UN agency that provides technical assistance to Colombia on women’s rights and health told Human Rights Watch there is very little training on forensic medicine in schools and some doctors have not been exposed to the basic anatomy involved in such an exam. “This isn’t provided in university [curriculum] ... they don’t know what to look for.”[234]

Advocates and officials also told Human Rights Watch that there are not sufficient resources for psychological support for victims of gender-based violence when reporting cases. One official in the inspector general’s office in Medellín (which receives displaced victims) told Human Rights Watch that the lack of psychologists in her office was harmful to victims and difficult for other staff: 

In offices where we have victims, we need psychologists. We need this. I am a lawyer, but I have to act like a psychologist [though I’m not trained in that]. The victims have to relive all [that has happened to them] to verify their claims when they come here.[235]

Poor Referrals

To maximize access to justice for displaced women who are victims of gender-based violence, officials in other sectors—including the health sector—must provide referrals. Health centers and hospitals that treat victims may be the only government institution they initially trust. Detection of abuse and referrals from health providers can play an important role in ensuring access to justice and protection for victims.

In the last chapter, we discussed how some displaced women and girls told Human Rights Watch that they sought medical care for injuries from domestic violence, but they did not reveal the abuse to the health provider. Several said their health provider did not ask about abuse, and the victims returned to the violence. One advocate explained, “For displaced women, in their situation, they have more difficulty accessing services. But they have other priorities other than accessing justice services for violence—they are under fear, pressure, and threats.”[236] The failure to screen for gender-based violence means that these victims will not be referred to the justice sector, and that perpetrators will not be held accountable for their crimes.

In light of this, it is vital that healthcare workers orient women and girls about their rights to judicial remedy and the process for seeking justice. Indeed, Colombia’s “referral pathway” flow charts indicate that this is a key component of the response to gender-based violence. 

However, health providers do not always provide this support. Sofia V., a displaced woman living in Bogotá, said she repeatedly sought medical treatment after her husband beat and injured her. A doctor finally asked her why she did not file a complaint against him. Sofia told him that she was married to a demon and worried about what would happen to her children if she reported it. The doctor did not probe further and did not provide information regarding her rights, nor any referral. Instead, Sofia returned to her husband to endure years of abuse. She finally left him in 2011, after one of his blows broke her nose.[237]

Elena L. also suffered years of abuse at the hands of her partner, a member of an irregular armed group. After three years of abuse, she sought medical treatment for a miscarriage. An advocate who worked with Elena explained, “Due to severe beating, the fetus died and she suffered a miscarriage. Despite the bruises and marks on her body, the hospital never inquired about what happened.”[238] The hospital did not provide Elena any referral to justice mechanisms. Elena returned and her husband continued to rape and beat her, resulting in an unintended pregnancy. 

Some health professionals may fail to refer patients to the justice sector or to report cases themselves out of fear for their own safety. A women’s health organization in Cali was asked by the government to teach the protocol for treating victims of sexual violence to health professionals in six municipalities in Valle de Cauca. The trainers found resistance among providers to following the protocols when the aggressors are armed actors. One trainer told us, “They don’t want to file a formal complaint about anything—whether sexual violence or intra-familial violence—if the perpetrator is dangerous.”[239] According to her, some doctors will go so far as report any injuries sustained as originating from some other source, to avoid putting themselves in a position where they might have to provide testimony in an investigation or case.[240] While she is not sure how widespread this problem is, she knows that it does happen in some cases, and that in those cases, women are not properly referred to the justice sector.

Costs of Seeking Justice

The Colombian government has taken some measures to limit the expense of pursuing justice after gender-based violence, yet the costs that remain can be prohibitive for poorer women and girls, including the displaced. Human Rights Watch found a consensus among advocates, officials, and victims that costs of transport for victims and witnesses—and in some cases costs of producing evidence—were a significant barrier to justice for gender crimes. As Paola E., a victim of intra-familial violence and mother to a child victim of sexual violence, put it, “it is very expensive to be a victim.”[241]

In most cities and towns, victims of gender-based violence must pay for transportation to police stations, prosecutors’ offices, courts, and other justice institutions. Displaced women and girls often live far from city centers where many justice institutions are located, making their trips long and costly. Given the high poverty rates among displaced women, paying for public transport to these places can be difficult. Moreover, these women also face the additional economic constraints of taking time from their income-generating activities to make these trips. Many also have to pay for childcare when they are away, or additional transport costs to bring their children along.

Alejandra C., who struggled with the costs of seeking justice after her daughter was raped in May 2011, told Human Rights Watch, “The attorney general’s office is in [a different neighborhood than where I live]. It takes me more than an hour. It costs about 1,500 pesos (about $.80) one-way in a minibus. But sometimes if the kids are coming home from school I have to be home earlier so I need a taxi. These are more expensive: 20,000 pesos (more than US$10). I don’t go [to the attorney general’s office] if the kids are with me. If I do, I need money for food and water.”[242] Other women said they had to pay transport costs to give testimony or bring in witnesses to testify in their investigations.[243]

Uncoordinated referrals to other services can result in higher transportation costs for victims. The integrated service centers, CAIVAS and CAVIF, are designed to reduce the number of trips a victim has to make to receive services. But in most cities, victims still bear transport costs to these centers, and to other institutions such as forensic medical testing locations. One prosecutor told Human Rights Watch that some victims cannot afford to go to the INMLCF.[244] Medellín is one exception, as the CAIVAS there has a vehicle for transporting victims. But this one vehicle is not enough to provide transport for all victims.[245] In Cartagena, CAIVAS and CAVIF are located in the same building, but victims have to pay for transportation to the INMLCF facility.[246]

Some officials reach into their own pockets to help victims. For example, the CAIVAS in Medellín takes up collections of personal funds to pay victims’ transportation costs when needed, and even to buy refreshments for victims who spend long hours at the center in the process of reporting.[247]

Victims also told Human Rights Watch that they struggled to afford costs related to providing evidence in their cases.[248] Dolores G. said that she had to pay to have her testimony typed up before the prosecutor would accept her complaint in 2003:

When I finally decided to leave my husband … I talked to a friend who said I could stay with her. She gave me money to go to the prosecutor’s office. When I arrived, they said I couldn’t file a complaint because there was nothing to write it on. I had to go to the corner and pay a stranger to type up what I was going to say to the prosecutor.[249]

One prominent women’s rights defender whose organization has worked with hundreds of victims said that this problem remains commonplace:

The economic condition of the victim is important. [A victim often] doesn't have the economic means to follow the case, have a lawyer, introduce evidence and witnesses, or even experts. If you want the justice system to work, you have to do all that as the victim of the crime.[250]

Fear of Retaliation

Several displaced women and girls told Human Rights Watch that fear of retaliation by rapists or abusive husbands delayed or stopped them from reporting violence. One woman told Human Rights Watch that even after reporting she remains fearful and may drop her case.[251]

Displaced women and girls have been forced from their homes by terrifying experiences, often from communities where armed groups exercise strong influence and social control. In such places—especially those with the presence of paramilitaries or their successor groups— the very authorities that received reports of crimes may have had links to the suspects.[252] Having lost trust of authorities, displaced women and girls may doubt the safety of filing a complaint, even in their new city or for crimes committed after their displacement.

Fear of retaliation is especially strong among women attacked by men they believe were affiliated with irregular armed groups, and among women living with abusive husbands. Soccoro Y., a 40-year-old displaced woman, was raped in Bogotá in late 2009 by armed men she believes were connected to a paramilitary successor group. She says she chose not to file a formal complaint about the crime because the rapists threatened to kill her: “I didn’t denounce because of shame and fear and because they said they would kill me. I was thinking of my children.”[253] Socorro believes that some irregular armed groups have connections to the police and that reporting violence would only increase her risk for more violence.

Paloma L. did call the police after armed men raped her in March 2012 outside of Medellín. She was afraid when the police arrived, and told them that it had been a mistake to call to report the rape.  Paloma says that they agreed with her. “First they told me to go to the prosecutors to file a declaration, and then they left. They didn’t ask me any questions about who did it,” she said.[254] Reflecting on the reaction of the police officers, who offered her no assurances about her safety, she decided not to report the case to the prosecutor’s office.

Gloria L., a woman who suffered a gang rape in 2012 by armed men that left her pregnant, also decided it was too risky to report the rape.  She said,

The fear is immense. You can’t imagine. I don’t want to die. They kill people in such a horrible way. This is what’s so worrying; they cut people up. More than 10 women were killed for denouncing their rapes. After that, they killed their children. That’s what [the assailants] told me [after they raped me].[255]

Dulcea A., a 45-year-old displaced indigenous woman and a victim of domestic violence, struggled to have her case taken seriously and lived in fear after filing a complaint. She first filed a criminal complaint against her husband for physical abuse in 2005.[256] She left him, but she told Human Rights Watch, he started carrying a gun, machetes, and even rocks, finding her and threatening her with these weapons. Every time he made a threat, she would file a complaint. “I filed complaint, after complaint, after complaint; a thousand times it feels like I have filed complaints,” she told Human Rights Watch.[257] Only after he broke down her door in December 2011 was there any action on her case; he was put in jail awaiting trial.[258] Even though he is in jail for now, she is not convinced there will be justice in the end. His lawyer keeps calling her house telling her that she is evil for putting the father of her children in jail, and pressuring her to drop the charges.[259] “For me, there was no real law,” Dulcea told Human Rights Watch.[260] She has not dropped the charges yet, but she is afraid. “He is a person that has killed people,” she told Human Rights Watch. “He was part of an illegal armed group. The law doesn’t know how bad he really is. For 16 years, I’ve lived through it…. ‘Let him come home,’ the lawyer says, but I will not.”[261]

A few women who spoke with Human Rights Watch had suffered sexual violence almost a decade ago, but only came forward to file a formal complaint recently because of Law 1448/ 2011: the Victims and Land Restitution Law. For some of these women, the delay in coming forward may mean that the perpetrators will not be brought to justice in their cases. Ana E., for example, was raped by paramilitaries in 2001, and forcibly displaced. For years after, her husband physically abused her, blaming her for the rape; saying she must have asked for it.[262] Because of the abuse, and from fear of retaliation from the perpetrators, Ana waited 10 years to file a formal complaint about the crime. When she went to the attorney general’s office in May 2011 to file a complaint about the crime, the prosecutor taking her statement congratulated her for coming forward. But she did not refer Ana to the INMLCF for forensic testing as too much time had passed. In January 2012 the prosecutor asked Ana for a list of witnesses. “I told her, ‘I have the paramilitaries who raped me as witnesses, that’s all I have,’” Ana told Human Rights Watch.[263] But she does not know their names, only faces. Without witnesses, Ana believes her case is doomed. Although, this would be a difficult case to pursue even in optimal judicial systems, it discourages her that she overcame her fear, and there will be no result.

Domestic violence victims also said they feared retaliation by their husbands, both against themselves and their children, if they reported abuse. Marlise L., a victim of gender-based violence herself and a leader within her displaced community in Cartagena, told Human Rights Watch,

There is a lot of intra-familial violence where I live. There are programs, but people don’t go because they are afraid. Fear is a huge obstacle to reporting…. Women accept that when they speak out, no one from outside will help and speaking out will make more instability for them.[264]

A 2011 study by Profamilia found that few victims of gender-based violence in Colombia report it to the authorities.[265] While 45 percent of women surveyed who had experienced physical violence sought help from family or friends, many fewer reported the violence to authorities. Among displaced women surveyed, only about one quarter reported violence to authorities.[266] Displaced women were more likely than the general population to say that fear of more abuse and fear of separation stopped them from reporting.[267]

This fear of separation may include separation from their children, if the children are put in protective custody. Some of the displaced women and girls who spoke to Human Rights Watch reported having the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare (ICBF) relocate their children for a period of time after they reported cases of intra-familial or sexual violence. Although child protection measures—including temporary removal from parents if necessary—are important, the fear of losing their children to protective custody may lead some women to delay or not report acts of intra-familial violence.

Lucia M. says that she hid from her husband with her children for over 18 months in a municipal shelter in Medellín starting in 2010. When her eligibility for shelter ended, she had to move out of the housing. She says she was not able to provide good quality housing and did not have a steady job, so ICBF put her children in protective custody.[268] Lucia does not know how she will get them back:

ICBF took all six of my children away because I don't have anywhere to live. I need to work before they can give me my children back. I need a large house, because they say there is not enough room in the house [I rent now].... I went from the country side to here. I don't know almost anything. How can I get a job? Without a job, I can't get my kids back. What am I going to do? I don't know....[269]

Lucia said that she wonders if she would have been better off not reporting the abuse.[270]