"The rebels would come to the brothel every day, armed and masked. They would order the women to line up on their hands and knees, put their guns in their mouths, and rape them. It was ugly. A place filled with women and underage girls all of us tricked and trapped, recalled Valeria, 21, whose name has been changed to protect her identity. The guerrillas came like they were there to kill."
"Valeria, like the dozens of other people she was held with, was trafficked to the brothel in north-east Colombia, in autumn last year. She had been offered a job in a restaurant, but on arrival was forced into prostitution and told that if she fled she would be killed. Two of those who tried to escape were shot dead as they ran, she said, while others who protested were taken away and never seen again."
"The Catatumbo region, near the border with Venezuela, is home to huge fields of coca, the base product in cocaine. In recent years, it has been ravaged by violence in a fight for control between two rival armed groups: the National Liberation Army (ELN), and the 33rd Front, a dissident off-shoot of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc). Rights' groups say serious abuses have been committed by both sides, including murders, kidnappings, disappearances, child recruitment and forced labour."
Armed groups in Catatumbo abducted and trafficked more than 150 girls and women aged 11 to 50 into brothels, where they endured daily rape, killings, and forced prostitution. Victims were lured with job offers and threatened with death; escape attempts were met with shootings and disappearances. Catatumbo's coca fields fuel competition between the ELN and the 33rd Front, producing widespread violence, child recruitment, kidnappings, and forced labor. Human rights organizations report spikes in homicides and displacement and document clear vengeance strategies by armed groups targeting civilians attempting to live normal lives.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]