Today women in Colombia continue to experience violence, especially sexual violence and sadly, this crime remains a silent tragedy. When I understood that I could be the voice of all those women whose cases have not been heard, but who continue to be victimised, I knew I had to speak out.

For me peace is being able to live in my territory without fear. To be able to work without persecution and to be able to live in harmony.

We can’t have peace just by signing an agreement in Havana. Peace is something that needs to be tackled step by step and by each and everyone in the territories and communities. And it’s important to listen to the different perspectives of all the victims and armed actors. And by this I mean all armed actors, because there are not only the FARC in this conflict, but also other armed groups.

We want peace. But that does not only mean demobilisation of armed groups – we want peace with a proposal that comes from the communities, from the peoples. There is no point in handing in weapons while the enemy is still facing us in our territories.

In the early days, we were only a few families in ASFADDES and tackling human rights issues was prohibited in Colombia. Demonstrating is a very important way of communicating with people. When we’re out in the street, people suddenly see the victims as real people capable of putting on a T-shirt saying “Where is my brother?”, with photos of loved ones around our necks.

Sexual violence against women in the Colombian armed conflict has been a war crime and a crime against humanity committed not only by illegal armed groups, but also by security forces. Sexual violence is an expression of the inequality experienced by women. Addressing sexual violence means building gender equality.

In the first phase of the peace negotiations, sexual violence was not recognised as a crime committed in the context of the armed conflict, as something directly related to the war. […] We [the gender sub-commission] obtained very important results in the agreement on victims, which now recognises sexual violence as one of the most serious crimes committed in the context of the armed conflict. It offers a special treatment for the victims and recognises certain institutional guarantees. We think this is a very important progress for the rights of women and this should be maintained throughout all stages of the implementation of the Peace Accord.