At least 18,667 children in Colombia were forced to join the now-demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group, and subjected to abuses and treatment considered war crimes over a 20-year period, the country’s transitional justice court said on Tuesday.
The investigation of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), which has called 26 former FARC members to testify, relates to case No. 07, which concerns the former rebel group’s recruitment and use of minors.
Children were used in many ways by the FARC as part of a general policy that was systematically implemented, JEP Magistrate Eduardo Frentes told a news conference.
Photo: AP
“A provisional estimate, which could be even greater, of 18,667 boys and girls used in the conflict by the FARC is, without a single doubt, one of the most terrible acts that could have happened during the conflict,” he said.
The tally came from analyzing 31 databases compiled by victims groups and the state, as well as the testimonies of 274 people who were forcibly recruited, said JEP Magistrate Lily Rueda, who is leading case No. 07.
As the investigation — which focused on the recruitment of minors from 1996 to 2016 — advances, the JEP is also to look at associated sexual and gender-based violence, forced disappearances, murders, torture, and cruel and degrading treatment.
Elsewhere in Colombia underage children continue to be used by other illegal armed groups, who use them as fighters, human shields and sex slaves, the Colombian government said.
The figures published by the JEP are far higher than those previously released by the government, which had estimated that more than 7,400 minors were recruited in Colombia from 1985 to 2020, while 16,000 died during the conflict.
The JEP was created under a 2016 peace deal to prosecute former FARC rebels and military leaders for alleged war crimes and has the power to impose lighter sentences than the ordinary justice system.
Former FARC leaders, who have since formed a political party called Comunes, were not immediately available for comment, but have previously said that recruitment of minors was not a general policy and that many joined the rebels’ ranks for protection or to escape poverty.
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