Sexual violence within armed groups in Colombian Conflict: Criminalisation and Victimhood.

Sexual violence within illegal armed groups is an open secret in Colombia. Yet victimised-perpetrators are political contested. As a result, the Colombian transitional justice framework treats victims and perpetrators separately, denying victim status to combatants who were sexually abused. This has resulted in their exclusion from mechanisms for truth, justice and reparation. This project explores the impact of normative discourses of victimhood and criminalisation on the rights of combatants who suffered sexual violence within their own ranks. The project uses doctrinal research methods and critical discourse analysis to examine how binary notions in the Colombian transitional justice have silenced combatants' experiences as sexual violence victims. Furthermore, building on literature on victim and gender hierarchies, the project aims to provide more inclusive normative discourses in the Colombian transitional justice framework, which recognise the diverse experiences of sexual violence victims. Finally, the project aims to establish an academic basis for the Colombian transitional justice mechanisms, authorities and policymakers to respond to the realities of combatants in a more consistent way with their main goals of transformative and inclusive justice.