Conflict in Colombia
The Center is working with the transitional justice system created in Colombia after the peace agreement in 2016, in order to identify reproductive violence as a structural phenomenon of the country’s local armed conflict. These reproductive violations affected the entire population, not just within the outlawed groups. This study identifies that all parties to the conflict, including the State, committed reproductive violence against women, girls and LGBTQ people.
Reproductive violence is a systematic violation of someone’s ability to decide whether or not to have children and when, and constitutes violations of reproductive autonomy and health. The Center believes it is time for the Colombian State to recognize reproductive violence as an autonomous category, in order to provide appropriate reparations to victims. It is necessary to make these reproductive violations visible, as they have been part of the multiple forms of sexual violence.
One of these sorts of violations came from the Colombian State when it decided to fumigate coca crops with glyphosate, a pesticide that can cause miscarriages according to scientific evidence included in a study conducted by the Universidad del Valle in association with the Center.
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Center Calls on Colombia to Halt Use of Herbicide Causing Harm to Reproductive Health