Rethinking Victimhood: Insights From Colombia's Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) on Gender-Based Violence Within Armed Groups, 2020-2025

This policy paper examines the advances and limitations of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace’s (JEP) efforts to recognise fighters who were victims of gender-based violence (GBV) within armed groups, a form of violence often overlooked by transitional justice mechanisms worldwide. While grounded in the Colombian context, the lessons emerging from this experience offer valuable insights for other conflict and post-conflict settings, particularly for judges, legislators, international actors, and policymakers working on human rights and transitional justice. The paper draws on findings from: (i) A roundtable held in Bogotá (Colombia) on 15 July 2025 with legal representatives of victims, women’s organisations, and JEP officials, organised in collaboration with Universidad del Rosario; (ii) Twenty-three semi-structured interviews conducted in Bogotá (Colombia) between March and May 2025 with legal representatives of victims, women’s and LGBTQ+ organisations, JEP and Truth Commission officials, academics, and transitional justice experts; and (iii) in depth documentary and case law research.

The experience of the JEP offers key lessons for other transitional justice systems seeking to address GBV within armed groups. The Colombian model demonstrates that the effective participation of victims and social movements not only strengthens the legitimacy of judicial processes but also broadens the institutional understanding of GBV and victimhood, revealing traditionally silenced dynamics such GBV inside armed groups. By facilitating collective listening spaces for former members of armed groups who experienced GBV, the JEP introduces a significant institutional innovation designed to rebuild trust with them, foster their self-recognition as victims, and promote an understanding of GBV rooted in diverse lived experiences inside the armed group. Likewise, the adoption of an intersectional gender perspective as a guiding principle of judicial action and interpretation is essential to resist reductionist narratives of the “ideal victim”, and to acknowledge the complex realities of those who were members of armed structures.

Nevertheless, persistent narrative barriers continue to hinder the full recognition of GBV within armed groups. These include the endurance of denialist discourses by former armed group leaders; the difficulty of some fighters who experienced GBV in identifying as victims; victims’ self-censorship due to security concerns, fear of losing support networks, or the absence of institutional benefits for reporting; and the difficulties former fighters who experienced GBV face in finding spaces for collective representation. Such constraints limit the full participation of fighters who have experienced GBV in the JEP and jeopardize the consolidation of a genuinely inclusive transitional justice framework capable of recognising multiple forms of GBV, including those occurring within the ranks. Building on these findings, the paper offers policy recommendations relevant to key actors operating in conflict and post-conflict contexts worldwide. Collectively, these aim to advance a more inclusive and intersectional model of transitional justice, one capable of acknowledging the complex identities and experiences of those who are simultaneously victims and fighters.

The policy paper is an output of the project The Subversive Victim: Victimhood, Agency & Sexual and Gender-based Violence in Colombian Non-State Armed Groups, carried out at Queen’s University Belfast School of Law and funded by the ESRC-NINE DTP Postdoctoral Fellowship. The study examines how the notion of the “ideal victim” shapes the recognition of GBV against fighters within Colombia’s transitional justice system, revealing both the limitations of existing legal frameworks and the potential of bottom-up approaches to construct more intersectional and complex narratives of victimhood.