Let's Talk About Rape — Empowering survivors, changing the narrative

Rafael sexually assaulted me while his comrades laughed and saw everything from the living room, they continued drinking and remained armed.

Angela

Survivor of armed conflict from Colombia

My name is Ángela María Escobar, a survivor of sexual violence due to the Colombian armed conflict.

Today, I’m the Head of the Network of Women Victims and Professionals, a support and assistance group for women who have survived forms of violence.

I lived in Guatapé, an eastern town in the department of Antioquia, Colombia, and worked with the municipality giving workshops and teaching trades to local women. On the night of 25th September 2000, I was with a group of friends at a nightclub in town celebrating a DJ contest that our friend had won. A paramilitary group had dominated the town for some time and his commander known as “Rafael” asked me to help him meet one of my friends, but I felt he had his sights on me.

Whilst celebrating, he arrived with a group of paramilitaries, I got scared as working with the municipality they had warned me before, saying if I saw anything strange or irregular, I should tell them immediately or else I would have to deal with him. Distressed, I asked a friend to take me home.

Let’s Talk About Rape® is a collaborative, therapeutic project empowering survivors to reclaim their narratives. Through self-portraiture using a shutter release cable, participants set their own agenda as a tool for healing.

Angela, Bogotá, Colombia, 2024

I couldn’t do more to defend myself, and when “Rafael” finished raping me he asked his companions if they wanted to rape me too. They stayed a while longer drinking in the living room and I stayed still lying on the bed. When I sensed they’d left, I got up and took a bath to get rid of their dirt on me and noticed that I was dripping with blood.

Angela

Once home, after taking a shower, there was a knock at the door.
I thought it was my friends wanting to continue the party, but when I opened the door I saw “Rafael” with two other paramilitaries who entered without permission and sat in the living room. They asked me to bring glasses and ice and began to drink while I was sitting there. After a while, “Rafael” forcibly took me by the arm and pushed me into one of the rooms. I protested, but I never imagined what he was about to do. “Rafael” sexually assaulted me while his comrades laughed and saw everything from the living room, they continued drinking and remained armed.

I had a wounded vaginal lip because he had bitten me.

A long time passed, I got out of the water and laid down naked, crying non-stop until I fell asleep. I used to be an extroverted woman and liked to go out dancing, but from that moment on, I practically never went out again. For a long time, I didn’t say anything to anyone about what happened, I was very afraid.

It has been 14 years since I started this path, as I tell many women, we can break the silence, overcome the shame and threats, continue fighting for our rights, for sexual health rights and for prevention and education for this to end.

Angela

After a month, on 25th October 2000, I accepted a friend’s invitation to have coffee. Arriving at the town square, I felt someone pointing and calling me with his finger. He was the new paramilitary leader of the town, alias “Javier”, four more paramilitaries who were with him surrounded me. He took out his gun and put it to my temple saying, “I’m going to kill you”, he continued to say very offensive and strong words to me. I could only think about my two children. He told me, “I won’t kill you out of consideration for your father and your son, but you’re leaving this town, you son of a bitch. You have until tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. to leave.”

I walked back to my house with my friend without speaking, I felt like I was floating, I didn’t see people, instead I saw little lights like fireflies until she asked me what they told me. “That I have to go,” I answered, but I didn’t tell her anything else.

The Secretary to the Major lived next to my house. I knocked on her door and when she opened, I hugged her and started crying. I told her that the paramilitaries had given me an ultimatum and I had to leave. We conferred about what to do and where I should go. Except for my father, I didn’t have a very close relationship with my family. My mother was not in the country and I didn’t want to worry my father. A couple of months before, I had witnessed a kidnapping of some workers perpetrated by the guerrilla, they warned me to inform them but I didn’t tell them anything.

I don’t really know how they found out that I knew about this, and one day they took me to a remote place in town and beat me for not telling them anything. They broke my teeth and left me badly beaten. That’s one of the reasons why I don’t like to laugh, it made me want to go out even less.

I confided in my Dad and he told me he would get me out of that shithole of a town. I spent the night getting ready to leave with the help of my friends. All I could say was, “this isn’t fair, this isn’t fair” and when they left I went under the bed in the dark, afraid that they were going to come to kill me.

The next morning, my eldest son, who was 16 at the time arrived. He got me up, showered me and ensured I left early. Then my Dad arrived and some women from the town said the first one to leave had to be me, so I left with the first truck, but as soon as I arrived in El Peñol where my Dad and sister lived, my son called and said “Grandpa, Grandpa, tell my mother to leave because they came for her to kill her.” He spoke with one of my sisters to foster me in Medellín and when they saw that I arrived very affected, they took me to a psychiatrist. I was medicated for a while and felt really numb.

About twenty days later, my eldest son wanted to visit me, he arrived in the city and although I didn’t want to go out, we went to have coffee. I never wanted to confess to anyone what had happened or why they had threatened me, but he revealed that he knew why, because the day I left the town they had gone looking for me. He had spoken with the new paramilitary leader of the town, “Javier” and he told him that “Rafael” and the two other paramilitaries who had raped me didn’t want me to say anything. At that moment when he told me, I wanted the earth to swallow me. It was the most painful thing that my son had found out. I denied it, but he told me he knew it was true.

Although both my parents helped me financially, I had to leave my sister’s house and a new martyrdom began. My father sent me groceries in parcels, I looked for them at the transport terminal until a paramilitary who recognized me told me that they kept looking for me and I had to leave and tell my Dad not to send me anything anymore. I left, and again, moved further away from my family. I started to look at how to earn a living, I ate what they were going to throw away in the marketplace and although it was very hard, I was able to support myself with whatever they wanted to give me. The only way out that I had at that time was prostitution, which only made me sink further because I consumed drugs and alcohol. The anger I felt towards men in the face of so much injustice led me to try to kill many of them on several occasions. I also tried to commit suicide twice, but on the second attempt, I was repentant and asked God for forgiveness, to help me, and prayed for my children.

One night, the partner I lived with at the time, being very drunk, also sexually attacked me and after abusing me, I convinced him to let me go to buy cigarettes. Half-naked I ran away. I spent the whole night on the street until I got close to a hospital. A male nurse saw me, he took me inside and checked me. I didn’t have a healthcare card membership so they couldn’t treat me. The police took me to the Prosecutor’s Office, but there again I felt mocked and humiliated as they didn’t believe me. They examined me and although I had seven lacerations on my vagina, there was no case because there were no traces of semen on my body and that guy went free.

I continued in that lifestyle, until one day, I felt very bad. I thought it was due to drinking the night before and I ignored it, but I fell very ill with a strangulated ulcer and was taken to hospital. I suffered from Peritonitis, during the operation, I turned to God and asked for a new opportunity, promising to change. Two days later, during recovery, I had a relapse and when they checked me they discovered that I had human papilloma.

When I left the hospital, I was alone. I had to earn a living as a street vendor and started selling crafts that I was learning to make until one day, tired of everything, I decided to go to the Prosecutor’s Office to report what had happened to me. When I got there they asked me absurd questions, such as how much time each of them took with me, if my nails were polished and such things. An even more painful and humiliating situation, so I went to the Ombudsman’s Office, spoke with a psychologist and then went home.

Angela

A month later I received a summons call and was very scared to attend. I thought something bad was going to happen, but it was an invitation to participate in a psychosocial assistance project for women victims of sexual violence in the armed conflict.

When I got there, I met thirty other women. They told us what the project was about and we began to get to know each other in tears, sharing our stories of misery and pain. My life began to change as a result of this project. I attended workshops and began to serve as support for other women victims. Little by little, I was training and traveling to Bogotá whilst empowering myself and becoming a leader empirically.

I met Angélica Bello, the first woman to speak publicly about this issue and although we dreamt of big things to help other women survivors, unfortunately Angélica committed suicide. After that I travelled to Bogotá and took part in shaping the organization (Mujer, sigue mis pasos) “Woman, follow my steps” based on her legacy, the intention was a temporary six-month stay, now turned into nine years since I have been living in Bogotá. Over time, I learned to lose my fear of threats and to break the silence, because the first thing they tell you after being raped is that if you say anything they will kill your family.

By 2016, we conformed the Network of Women Victims and Professionals and were part of the dialogue and advisory tables during the Government’s peace process where we met the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Dr. Denis Mukwege.

In 2017 we began to travel abroad several times at his invitation and became part of the SEMA Global Network.

All of this led me to reconcile with my mother and my family who today see me with pride and as an exemplary woman for my strength. My father died in 2013 and in 2020, my mother became seriously ill. I was able to be her support, we spoke, forgave each other and healed our relationship before her passing.