Since the signing of the peace agreement in Colombia with the FARC-EP guerillas in 2016, we have been actively supporting the participation of conflict-affected women in its implementation. In our programme, we are committed to ensuring that their experiences and issues are included in the transition to a sustainable, peaceful society.
The 2016 peace agreement between the FARC-EP (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia - Ejército del Pueblo) and the Colombian government was supposed to end one of the longest armed conflicts after more than 50 years, one which had cost the lives of over 450,000 people. Women were affected in several ways: they took part in the war as FARC combatants and thousands experienced sexualised violence from both parties to the conflict. Although the armed conflict with the FARC-EP was formally ended in 2016, the violence continues.
The peace agreement started the process of addressing the root causes of the conflict: unequal land distribution and political participation, and trafficking in illicit drugs. The peace agreement created the Comprehensive System for Truth, Justice, Reparation and Non-Repetition. The Truth Commission, created as one of three institutions for this purpose, began its work in 2018 to highlight the causes of the conflict and expose its painful reality. In 2022, the Commission concluded its work by handing over its reports. The period following the conclusion of the peace agreement is a crucial time in Colombia to secure the role of civil society, particularly of women, in building a peaceful society.
The Colombian peace agreement is an international model for the inclusion of marginalised populations and for women's participation. It is the first peace agreement in the world to integrate a gender approach effectively and one of the most progressive in terms of the rights of women and the LGBTIQ+ community. The women's and LGBTIQ+ movements played a significant role in the inclusion of these aspects during the peace negotiations.
The women's and LGBTIQ+ movements were able to exert influence at various stages of the peace process. Thanks to them, the peace agreement integrates a gender-specific approach and contains an entire chapter on the subject of gender. The agreement integrates ethnic and gender-specific perspectives. For example, it explicitly refers to women's right to own land, contains special provisions for women's political participation and states that there will be no amnesty for crimes of sexualised violence.
This gender approach was highly controversial in the run-up to the 2016 referendum on the peace agreement. Just over 50% of voters voted against it. In response, the Colombian government and the FARC-EP signed a revised peace agreement. The gender perspective and, in particular, the rights of LGBTIQ+ people were weakened in the final agreement.
While the peace agreement serves as a model, it faces major challenges in its implementation. Since the signing of the agreement, different regions of the country have been caught up in new spirals of violence and armed conflict. This spiral of violence can be traced back to various causes:
The incomplete implementation of the peace agreement.
The limited ability of the state to control the violence and to be present in the affected areas.
The increase in armed groups and their struggle for territorial control.
Obstacles in current peace negotiations between the government and other armed groups (e.g. with the EPL).
The increasing remilitarisation and ongoing violence have had various impacts on the population and the environment, such as the recruitment of minors or the exploitation of nature through deforestation. In particular, the battle for routes for illegal drug trafficking has a wide range of impacts on the local population, especially on women. They are the target of sexualised violence and suffer from the loss of their income and their land due to the destruction of biodiversity resulting from the armed fight. Women face great social pressure to return to traditional female roles. Particularly women in leadership roles are stigmatised and severely restricted in their activities because they can only carry them out with great caution.
Since 2016, hundreds of conflict-affected women have participated in Women's Peace Tables, which we have run together with our programme partner Corporación de Mujeres Ecofeministas Comunitar (Comunitar).
These meetings covered a range of needs. At the Women's Peace Tables, women – including indigenous women, women smallholder farmers, Afro-Colombian women and “mestiza” women – were given access to knowledge, networks and time to develop, among other things, demands and advocacy strategies together. Women's Peace Tables were held in urban and remote areas. In rural areas, in particular, women are unaware of the legal possibilities offered to them by the peace agreement.
The new spirals of violence and the restriction of women's leadership roles jeopardise the progress achieved as a result of the peace agreement. Women leaders are being threatened and murdered by armed groups in order to spread fear and limit their involvement in implementing the agreement.
Since 2025, we have been working with Comunitar to strengthen women's self-protection mechanisms and self-care so that their leadership roles are preserved and consolidated and they can continue to work for peace. For example, together the women are finding strategies to enable them to carry out their advocacy work despite the mounting dangers. Due to the increasing conflicts over land and resources, they are lobbying decision-makers to protect women's right to own land and are demanding guarantees for the protection of human rights and biodiversity.
An important component of the programme is the exchange of knowledge between the partners in Colombia, Nepal and the Philippines. This began in 2019 with an initial face-to-face meeting and culminated in 2021 with the joint development of the publication “From transition to transformation: strengthening women's effective participation in peacebuilding and transitional justice processes”. We will continue this exchange of knowledge in our programme work with Comunitar as well as in the Feminists Connecting for Peace network.
Zully Meneses, director of our partner organisation Corporación Comunitar in Colombia, talks about the importance of the Women's Peace Tables, which offered women from different regions safe spaces where they could speak freely about their experiences of the armed conflict.
Conflict-affected women from different regions participated in a Women’s Peace Table in southern Colombia in the summer of 2023. On the agenda: create a space for women to exchange experiences and to deepen their knowledge on transitional justice and reconciliation.
Two representatives of the Gender Working Group of the Colombian Truth Commission exchanged their experiences with peace activists from the Philippines. Many moments of recognition and understanding emerged at during these exchanges. Interview with our programme managers Andrea Filippi and Karin Widmer.
Making peace processes more gender-sensitive
In 2019, we brought peace activists from Colombia, Nepal and the Philippines together to share their experiences of armed conflict and of the subsequent peace efforts and to benefit from each other's expertise.
