A (Feminist) Farewell to Arms: The Impact of the Peace Process with the FARC– EP on Colombian Feminism

Authors

Lina M. Céspedes-Báez, Universidad del Rosario Law School

Keywords

Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, Sexual violence against women

Abstract

The strategic deployment of international law played a key role in introducing a gender-based reading of the Colombian internal armed conflict. During the early 2000s, domestic women’s rights NGOs appropriated the language of this body of law to demonstrate that the conflict not only was imposing a heavy toll on women, but also that it was impacting them differentially and disproportionately. To do so, they outlined a narrative using the terminology of international human rights, humanitarian, and criminal law to frame particular wrongs women were enduring as gender-based violence. Following the lines of the international discourse on conflict and women, sexual violence was at the center of their documentation, advocacy, and litigation work. In less than a decade, the most visible Colombian NGOs and activists, along with the collaboration of international and regional organizations and NGOs, hammered out a specific knowledge about the internal conflict, positioned it in the national and international realm, and spurred government action to turn it into legislation, public policy, and judicial decisions.

Recommended Citation

Céspedes-Báez, Lina M. (2019) "A (Feminist) Farewell to Arms: The Impact of the Peace Process with the FARC– EP on Colombian Feminism," Cornell International Law Journal: Vol. 52: No. 1, Article 3.
Available at: https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cilj/vol52/iss1/3