For decades, kidnapping was a weapon of war in Colombia, used by both guerrilla groups and criminal mafias, with over 50,000 abductions recorded between 1990 and 2018. Victims were reduced to hostages, moved between camps, and treated as bargaining tools. Today, many of these survivors are playing a central role in redefining justice and peace in the country’s post-conflict context.
In January 2021, Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) charged eight former FARC leaders with crimes against humanity and war crimes for systematic kidnapping. By September 2025, seven of these ex-leaders were convicted and ordered to carry out restorative sanctions, including projects to preserve victims’ memories. While accountability is important, the transitional justice process in Colombia is distinctive because victims themselves have become active participants, shaping how justice is pursued rather than remaining passive observers.
Macro-case 01 of the JEP, formally titled Hostage-taking, serious deprivations of liberty and other concurrent crimes, focuses on emblematic kidnappings during the conflict. More than 21,000 victims have been identified, including politicians, soldiers, farmers, traders, children, and families. Many endured months or years of degrading and violent conditions. Within this judicial process, survivors have transformed personal trauma into collective demands for truth, dignity, and non-repetition, stepping forward as peacebuilders.
Historically, kidnapping survivors were largely absent from public narratives. Their suffering was often reduced to statistics or sensationalised by the media. Through JEP hearings, victims have shared testimonies describing chains, isolation, hunger, illness, sexual abuse, and uncertainty, while families recounted years spent searching or negotiating ransoms. These narratives have helped create a “democratisation of pain,” moving suffering from private experience into shared public knowledge, forcing society to confront the human cost of the conflict and laying the foundation for non-repetition.
Colombia’s transitional justice system balances accountability with the possibility of peace. Perpetrators who fully acknowledge responsibility and participate in truth-telling can receive restorative sanctions rather than long prison sentences. While this approach has sparked controversy, many former hostages find recognition as important as punishment. Public admissions of systematic kidnapping by former FARC leaders have allowed some survivors to begin grieving, viewing truth-telling as a form of reparation despite the ongoing risks and challenges of participation.
Macro-case 01 has transformed survivors from passive beneficiaries into political actors. Victims now comment on indictments, propose reparations, and influence how responsibility is understood. They emphasize that justice must address social and moral harm, not just individual acts, and advocate for a coherent collective memory that captures kidnapping as a systematic crime with long-term societal effects. This participation allows survivors to reclaim agency after years of dehumanization.
International observers have praised Colombia’s approach. The International Center for Transitional Justice highlighted the significance of the JEP’s focus on truth, victim participation, and restorative sanctions, noting Colombia as the first country to address kidnapping so comprehensively within a transitional justice framework. Survivors’ persistence ensures justice extends beyond legal formalities, linking recognition, accountability, and memory to tangible peacebuilding and social repair.
Despite political polarization, institutional challenges, and ongoing insecurity, former hostages are redefining peace in practice. By turning their experiences into public testimony and influencing justice processes, they are helping to construct a post-conflict society grounded in lived experience. Their engagement demonstrates that sustainable peace is built not only at negotiation tables but through the recognition, voice, and active participation of those who suffered most.
