Recognizing all forms of gender-based violence in conflict: a historic step for justice  – Womens Link Worldwide

June 19, the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict, invites us to confront the gendered harms of armed conflict and the ways in which sexual violence continues to be used to assert domination, terrorize populations, and reinforce systems of inequality. Historically, conflict-related sexual violence has reflected and reinforced systems of domination, occurring alongside armed conflict, torture, and political repression with devastating consequences for those affected. In 2025 alone, the United Nations confirmed 9,788 cases of conflict-related sexual violence. As the UN's own Special Representative, Pramila Patten notes, this figure does not reflect the true scale of what remains largely unseen and underreported.  

Survivors of gender-based violence in conflict have fought for decades to have these crimes named, prosecuted, and repaired in the search for justice. Their advocacy has been foundational to international law, transitional justice, and the broader recognition of gender-based violence as a war crime. Today, we are called to go further and acknowledge every form it takes. 

One of them is reproductive violence, a distinct and autonomous category, separate from sexual violence. Its recognition is itself a product of survivors' courage and feminist legal advocacy. The difference is not just semantic. It starts with how each form of violence is defined, and who gets left out when the definitions are too narrow. 

Sexual violence in conflict refers to rape, sexual slavery, forced marriage, and other acts of a sexual nature committed against people in the context of war or armed conflict. It constitutes a crime under international humanitarian law; while international courts and institutions have, for decades, recognized that these violations may be perpetrated deliberately to terrorize, punish, and exert control during conflict, it is equally important to center the experiences and dignity of survivors, rather than reducing these harms to the strategic military purposes they may serve.  

Reproductive violence, on the other hand, refers to violations of reproductive autonomy such as forced contraception, forced abortion, forced sterilization, and forced pregnancy. Although these violations may overlap sexual violence in some contexts, they should not be conflated with it. Forced contraception, for example, constitutes reproductive violence because it deprives people with child-bearing capacity of control over their reproductive lives, even where no act of sexual nature is involved. Failing to document and recognize reproductive violence on its own terms risks rendering survivors' experiences invisible. 

Helena's story 

Our client Helena is a survivor of reproductive violence. When she was 14, she was forcibly recruited into the FARC armed group in rural Colombia. Helena was subjected to forced contraception, and when she became pregnant, the guerrilla forced an abortion on her at seven months. The physical and psychological consequences of this forced abortion have followed her ever since: chronic kidney disease, post-traumatic stress disorder, recurring depression, and years of healthcare denials and bureaucratic obstruction by the Colombian institutions that were supposed to protect her.  

“I endured many things, but abortion was what broke me. I want them to acknowledge it, to admit what happened, and that the same thing doesn't happen to other women.â€Â Â 

Since 2017, she has been represented by Women's Link in her pursuit of justice and reparations. One of her definitions of justice, in fact, has been to be recognized as a survivor of reproductive violence and not sexual violence. That distinction has been important for Helena, and for the countless survivors whose experiences go unrecognized when reproductive violence is folded into a category that does not fit.  

A historic step forward 

In 2019, Helena's case entered into consideration before Colombia's Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), accompanied by Women's Link as her legal representative. Her case, among many others, contributed directly to a historic ruling. In December 2024, for the first time, a transitional justice tribunal formally recognized reproductive violence as an autonomous form of violence, distinct from sexual violence. It also named gender-based violence by prejudice as its own separate category.  

In May 2025, Helena stood before the tribunal herself, one of the first women formerly recruited by the FARC to testify, sharing her story and ensuring that the JEP's recognition of reproductive violence would be anchored in the truth of what survivors had lived.  

The JEP's ruling was made possible by Helena's courage, and by the generations of survivors and feminist advocates who built the path she walked. There is a significant scale of what this ruling addresses: According to the JEP, the FARC recruited 18,677 children between 1971 and 2016; of the girls recruited, 29% were subjected to forced contraception and 23% to forced abortion. 

Why naming this distinction matters 

When reproductive violence goes unnamed, survivors may lack the legal language necessary to name the harms they experienced and pursue justice for them. Helena's case demonstrates how rigid victimhood frameworks can fail those whose experiences do not fit neatly within established categories. For years, she was denied recognition as a “victim†within the legal Colombian framework because of the tension between her status as a girl forcibly recruited into an armed group and her later participation in that group. The absence of adequate frameworks to recognize reproductive violence compounded this invisibility, obscuring a distinct dimension of the harm she experienced. 

In Colombia, the JEP ruling challenges and changes that. It is a model for what justice systems can do when they listen to survivors. We celebrate the advances the JEP has made in naming and differentiating all forms of gender-based violence in conflict. We honor the survivors of sexual violence whose decades of advocacy laid out the groundwork for this expanded recognition, and we continue to accompany Helena and others whose full reparations remain unfinished.