By Edelmiro Franco V. | 2024-11-21

BOGOTA -- The next morning, Johanna would be shot. That night, she cried as she never had before.

At just 17 years old and seven months pregnant, she was sentenced by a Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) court-martial to face execution at six the following morning.

​​Her "crime": her brother, who had also served with FARC, deserted and was collaborating with the Colombian army.

"I begged them not to shoot me. I reminded them that I was pregnant with Giovanni's child [her partner in FARC], but they didn't care. They ordered my execution for six the next morning," recounted Johanna, known as Natalia within FARC, in an interview with Entorno.

Fifty guerrillas from FARC's 32nd Front presided over Johanna's court-martial, unanimously sentencing her to be shot.

After the court-martial, they "tied me by the neck and shoulders with a very thick rope and led me to a location far from the camp," Johanna said. The camp was situated in the jungle-covered Putumayo region, southern Colombia.

Tied to a tree, she awaited her final fate.

Lost in a trance-like state, reflecting on the twists and turns of her life since being recruited by FARC at just 15, she suddenly heard a whisper from one of her guerrilla comrades.

"The guerrilla assigned to watch over me through the night approached the tree where I was tied and whispered, 'Nati, if you want, I can untie you, and we can escape. You've been a good guerrilla fighter.'"

Together, they began their escape at 11 o'clock that night.

"We managed to reach a place called La Cristalina, and from there, we made our way to Villa Garzón (Putumayo)," where a priest hid them before they ultimately surrendered to government forces.

Johanna's story of the abuse she endured during her two years in FARC, from 2006 to 2008, mirrors the experiences of hundreds of children recruited by illegal armed groups in Colombia.

Within FARC, the National Liberation Army (ELN) and various criminal groups mostly linked to drug trafficking, boys and girls have suffered and continue to endure rape, sexual slavery, forced marriages, forced nudity and other violent sexual acts, along with disappearances.

Both FARC and the ELN were founded in 1964.

Ongoing war crimes

The recruitment of minors, along with widespread human rights violations, remains a common practice among insurgent and criminal groups across Colombia.

Dozens of stories, including Johanna's and even more harrowing ones, were presented November 13 to the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), a Colombian judicial body.

The JEP documented the recruitment histories of 805 minors -- 451 boys and 354 girls -- and found that the most affected groups were the Koreguaje, Hitnu, Bari, Sikuani and Cubeo Indigenous communities, with a total of 8,903 victims, including survivors and families still searching for missing children.

In 2023, the Colombian Ombudsman's Office Early Warning System documented at least 184 cases of child and adolescent recruitment, including 110 boys and 74 girls, a report by that agency reveals.

FARC -- long known for its expertise in recruiting minors -- was responsible for 91.1% of cases, followed by the ELN at 7%, and other illegal groups at 1.3%, the Ombudsman's Office reported in February.

The figures, however, obscure part of the picture, according to the agency. This is "because the issue is linked to the lack of an information system that ensures the confidentiality of victims and their families."

Both FARC and the ELN are engaged in peace processes with the Colombian government, though both efforts have faced significant challenges.

FARC lacks a central command and has splintered into smaller factions primarily focused on drug trafficking.

Meanwhile, the ELN's ongoing terrorist attacks raise doubts about its genuine commitment to peace.

Cauca, in southwestern Colombia, is one of the regions hardest hit by the recruitment of minors.

The Carolina Ramírez Front, a faction of FARC, exploits the absence of effective governance in Bajo Putumayo (Cauca), targeting schools in the area to distribute pamphlets and persuade children and adolescents to join their ranks.

The offer: "Two million COP [about $450], a motorcycle and a rifle," according to a November 9 report in El Espectador.

In other regions, criminal groups and guerrillas use social media to recruit minors.

Recruiters post videos flaunting weapons, stacks of cash and motorcycles to entice minors seeking an escape from poverty.

Between January and November, Colombians reported at least 282 cases of child and adolescent recruitment with half of the victims belonging to Indigenous communities, El Espectador reported recently, citing Ombudsman's Office data.

The victims ranged in age from 9 to 17, with most falling between 14 and 17.

Transnational phenomenon

Neighbors of Colombia suffer from the plague of child insurgent recruitment as well.

FARC and the ELN have long operated in Venezuela and Ecuador, recruiting minors there. The practice is prevalent among other criminal organizations with networks throughout Latin America, such as Tren de Aragua.

In Venezuela, the recruitment of minors by FARC and the ELN is concentrated in the departments bordering Colombia, which are strategic regions for these armed groups.

The rise in minor recruitment by criminal organizations in Venezuela is becoming an increasingly urgent issue.

Organized crime is effectively enslaving children and adolescents in the country, Cecodap, a children's-rights organization, said in a report in March 2022.

Recruitment of children and adolescents by organized crime in Venezuela benefits from the country's economic collapse [after misrule by Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro], according to a Cecodap investigation from March 2022.

"Food insecurity, school dropouts, and domestic violence are key factors pushing children and adolescents toward criminal organizations. The recruitment of minors is largely driven by desperate circumstances and a blatant disregard for their human rights," the study concluded.

The recruitment of children, adolescents and young people by armed groups is a major social challenge across many Latin American countries, a September article by Contemporary Dilemmas: Education, Politics, and Values Magazine of Ecuador emphasizes.

Armed groups often use firearm lessons and promises of material rewards, like video games or mobile phones, to lure vulnerable minors, the study, titled "Determining Factors in Child Recruitment by Armed Groups in Guayaquil," asserted.

In Ecuador, criminal gangs "are actively recruiting children as young as 10, employing both coercive and deceptive methods to involve them in criminal activities."

"Extreme poverty, limited access to education, family disintegration and the presence of organized criminal groups" make juveniles vulnerable to recruiting, both in Ecuador and neighboring countries like Colombia, the report added.