The United Nations (UN) will have a new Colombian quota: journalist Jineth Bedoya Lima, designated this week as new global ambassador in the fight against sexual violence.
Bedoya is one of the faces of gender-based violence in the country and the continent, as she not only faced sexual assault, kidnapping and torture during the armed conflict in her homeland, but her case reached the stands of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Inter-American Court of Human Rights), which, in a historic ruling, condemned the Colombian State for the crimes to which they subjected today's deputy editor of the newspaper El Tiempo.
The Bogotá journalist said that it represents “a challenge and an honor” to become a spokesperson for the thousands of victims around the world who, like her, suffered the scourge of sexual assault. The UN, for its part, highlighted the distinguished work of the communicator by those who have been assaulted.
“I commend their courage and commitment to elevate the issue of conflict-related sexual violence to the public agenda and historical record in Colombia and around the world, and their quest for justice, truth and reparation for these heinous crimes over two decades,” said UN Women Executive Director Pramila Patten.
Patten not only highlighted the new UN ambassador for her appointment, but also for the ruling of the Inter-American Court in her favor, on October 20, 2021, in which she declared the State responsible for the attack on Bedoya inside the La Modelo prison (Bogotá) on May 25, 2000 and for the subsequent abduction, in which she was sexually assaulted, physically and verbally by paramilitaries.
“This ruling marks the first time that a court specifically considers the use of sexual violence as a tool to silence a woman journalist in the context of the Colombian armed conflict,” Patten said.
The ruling in question came 21 months after the scourges to which Jineth Bedoya was subjected in the capital's penitentiary while trying to carry out her journalistic duties, when she went to that place to engage in an interview with Mario Jaimes Mejía, alias 'el Panadero', a condemned paramilitary.
According to the Court, the State did not provide basic security guarantees to the journalist and allowed, once she was at the entrance to the detention center, she was abducted and subjected to all “serious, precise and consistent” crimes.
It is worth remembering that Jineth was threatened by a subject who, after locking her for hours in a basement of La Modelo, forced her to get into a car, transferred her to the city of Villavicencio and, on the way, subjected her to the attacks in question.
The Inter-American Court criticized the actions of the guards of the National Penitentiary and Prison Institute (Inpec) who, knowing that Jineth would attend the prison to carry out their information work, left her alone and at the mercy of the criminals who attacked her. “Along with the strange attitude of the guard at the entrance, who would have left Mrs. Bedoya at the door alone at the time of the kidnapping, even though he was aware of her visit,” the 89-page document issued by the court reads.
In the questions that international jurists issued, serious allegations were also evident against the National Police, whose members had “full knowledge of the lady's presence at that time at the prison door,” the Inter-American Court affirmed, confirming what Jineth said on multiple occasions, that in her kidnapping involved members of this institution.
The ruling also vehemently questioned the fact that the Colombian justice system took so many years to determine penalties against the subjects who attacked Bedoya. After two decades, only three people received convictions for crimes against the victim. “The court noted that, at the date of issuance of the judgment, it had not been possible to determine the intellectual authorship of the events or other co-authors who might have participated in them,” he added.
Specifically, those convicted in this media case were former paramilitaries Alejandro Cárdenas ('J. J. ') and Jesús Emiro Pereira Rivera (' Huevoepizca '), to 30 and 40 years in prison, respectively, and 'El Panadero', sentenced to 28 years in prison.
When Bedoya was the victim of the events already described, he served as a correspondent for the Bogotá daily newspaper El Espectador, which he attended to document the murders and struggles of mafia powers, among other reproachable events taking place in La Modelo, one of the oldest prisons in Colombia. Due to what happened, the judgment of the Inter-American Court also sheltered Luz Nelly Lima, Jineth's mother, who also suffered a lot from the attacks on her daughter.
The ruling also supported the program No Time to Be Silent, developed by Jineth Bedoya since 2010 and which earned him today to become an emblem of Colombian territory to fight against these crimes all over the world.
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