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Tuesday, January 27, 2015
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Nature of the Case

This case is a follow-up evaluation from the Special Procedures Court decision Auto 092 in 2008 which declared that displaced women’s rights in the armed conflict were being systematically violated and subsequently ordered the adoption of specific measures to advance the protection of women’s fundamental rights. The purpose of this follow-up was for the Court to evaluate the level of compliance with the T-025 judgment, in particular the measures adopted by the Court in the Auto 092 of 2008. In this follow-up, seven years after the initial judgment, the Court concluded that the steps ordered in Auto 092 had still not been implemented and that women’s fundamental rights continued to be violated in a severe and systemic manner.

Enforcement of the Decision and Outcomes

On December 18, 2017, the Court issued yet another follow-up report, Auto 737(link is external), focusing on the displaced women’s issues addressed in Autos 092, 098, and 009, persisting in the context of post-conflict Colombia. The Court gave the National Government’s response a grade of “low” for follow-ups to Auto 009, finding no compelling information or evidence that plan of action for witness protection of victims of sexual violence was underway and no evidence of training programs for the judiciary and prosecution’s staff regarding gender discrimination. While the Court did find complete and partial compliance by the Administrative Special Unit for the Attention and Whole Reparations of Victims of the Armed Conflict and National Center on Historic Memory regarding symbolic reparations projects and centralization of data, this fell short of the mandate it had imposed on the government. The Court thus set forth additional measures, to be complied with in within a timeframe of two to six months, to provide additional information on: the number of women in the Displaced Persons Registry, status of cases against sexual violence perpetrators, status of disciplinary cases against perpetrators within the armed forces, and information on how the government planned to properly incorporate constitutional presumptions and implement training programs for judicial staff, armed forces, and prosecution staff.

Significance of the Case

This case highlighted the structural nature of gender discrimination in Colombia, demonstrating how it manifests even in institutions which are set up to help women, such as a prosecutor’s office’s degrading treatment of women who are trying to bring cases against their perpetrators. It also highlighted the systemic use of sexual violence as a mechanism for control and coercion of women, their families and their communities. Similarly, it added an important intersectionality perspective to the plight of displaced women–centering the disproportionate impact on Indigenous and Afro-Colombian women–as well as to the discrimination within the displaced women’s population of the LGBTQI community.

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