Upon a backdrop of domestic violence, unemployment, gang crime and an endemic black-market of illicit substances, armed conflict has been tearing Colombia apart for some decades. Sadly, many families have been caught up in the crossfire and it is not only adults who have taken up arms.
Over decades of civil conflict and gang warfare, the alarmingly high prevalence of sexual violence has been critically overlooked and downplayed in Colombia. Rape, involuntary prostitution, unplanned pregnancy and forced abortion is commonplace.