President Duque’s Peace with Legality Policy has placed the victims at the center of the actions of attention, assistance, and integral reparation.

By Ramon Rodriguez Andrade, Unit for the Victims’ Director

Five years have passed since the final signing of the Peace Accords between the Government and the FARC. In the development of what was defined by both parties, the Unit for the Victims can state that the entity it has not been inferior to its task of attending, assisting and fully repair, in a decisive manner, 9,189,839 Colombians affected by more than half a century of conflict.

Tangible actions and our entity’s figures confirm President Ivan Duque’s commitment with the sustainability of measures for the peace construction through the action implementation within the Peace with Legality Policy framework, transforming thousands of victims’ life projects. It is a fact that the Peace with Legality Policy has placed the victims at the center of the actions of care, assistance, and integral reparation.

It is a task we do every day from Bogota and in the furthest parts of our geography: one day we compensate thousands of victims in Antioquia, but at the same time, we are closing commitments with groups in various municipalities in the country’s south, groups which have been carrying on reparation process for years. In the same manner, we could be signing agreements with the Coast universities so that young people can enter higher education, or handing out free military identity documents in the Llanos region, or taking Humanitarian Aid to Choco’s and Nariño’s displaced communities, which is the victimizing fact that mostly affects those who live in conflictive areas, or looking for alternatives for those who left the country in search of a better life, among many other missionary tasks, for example in Spain or Ecuador.  

The need to attend to our daily tasks has led us to have wide presence through 205 Attention Points and 35 Regional Centers where face-to-face care for victims is guaranteed in a timely, agile, and quality manner.

Achievements

To begin with, the will to honor the State's commitments with the victims materialized with the extension of Law 1448 for 10 years, and the approval of a CONPES document that establishes a budget of $142 billion COP.

Let’s review some figures that support the previous statement:

• To date, 1,272,873 administrative and judicial compensations have been delivered. It should be noted that 555,603 of these were delivered within the framework of the Final Agreement implementation.

• Since the end of 2016, 4,373,468 money orders worth $ 2.6 billion COP have been placed for Humanitarian Assistance, benefiting 2,079,346 households.

• Of 127,046 people who have received Immediate Humanitarian Aid, with an investment of $99,388,699,590 COP, 64% (81,383) corresponds to what has been received since the Agreement was signed; investment of more than $74 billion COP.

• Of 795 Collective Reparation Subjects (SRC) included in the RUV, 30 have an Integral Reparation Plan (PIRC) fully implemented. The closure of the implementation with these subjects has occurred within the framework of the Final Agreement implementation. Since August 7^th, 2018, the closure of 29 of the 30 subjects has been achieved.

• Through the Emotional Group Recovery Strategy (EREG), 261,237 people have been served with an investment of about $39 billion COP. Since the signing of the Final Agreement, 149,399 people have accessed this measure.

• The Agreement contemplates return and relocation processes in coordination with the PDET territories. Between December 2016 and September 30^th, 2021, we have supported 189,103 households in their return, relocation, or local integration process. It should be noted that during the Peace with Legality Policy implementation, 38,603 households have been supported in their process.

• Regarding social and community infrastructure projects, the Unit has supported 673 by supplying construction materials or endowment elements, with a total investment of $73.5 billion COP for the benefit of 968,086 people.

These are some figures, but the mission accomplished is truly felt when a victim in a communal hall or a sports field thanks the Unit and acknowledges that we have not left them alone.