I've traveled the world as a writer and an activist
for my entire life.
What we are talking about is a revolution.
We are the women that our parents warned us about.
And I can tell you that by confronting the problems
once marginalized as "women's issues,"
we can tackle the greatest dangers
of the 21st century.
Behind every major crisis,
there's an unseen factor at play,
a story you've never been told.
The greatest indicator of the world's stability,
wealth, and safety is the status of women.
In Colombia,
50 years of bloody civil war has torn that country apart,
costing billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives.
But in September 2015,
a historic accord was struck, and the end may be in sight.
The key to maintaining that peace
rests in the hands of women on both sides,
including those sitting at the negotiating table
and the thousands of female fighters who are coming home.
So, we are in Bogotá,
and we are finally headed to meet with a FARC.
Most Colombians feel that it's completely crazy
to go into a FARC camp.
They've committed killings. They've kidnapped people.
They're considered a terrorist organization
by the Colombian government
and almost every other country right now.
The FARC, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia,
began as a peasant uprising against extreme poverty
and government repression in 1964.
They're known for their controversial tactics.
The State Department has called the FARC
the most dangerous international terrorist organization
based in the Western Hemisphere.
The FARC is responsible for more than 60% of the cocaine
that's smuggled into the United States.
The FARC is also known
for their high numbers of female soldiers,
and these women have played a critical role
in both the conflict and the ongoing peace process.
In July of 2015, we were granted permission
to embed with a front-line unit during a cease-fire.
Many cease-fires before have collapsed,
so there's definitely still a lot of tension.
Just turn off this light, can I?
Yeah.
Despite our clearance, we were stopped by armed FARC soldiers
immediately after crossing into their territory.
Wait, wait, wait. Don't film here.
They're just telling us -- Don't do this.
At the time of our visit in the summer of 2015,
this was still an active war,
and the FARC wasn't taking any chances
of accidentally leaking their secret camp locations
to the government.
The FARC don't want us to have any cellphone with us at all
because any kind of signal that comes out of the jungle
can be very dangerous and give away their location.
That's how they actually end up getting bombed often enough.
So, it took us a really long time to get here.
We've been traveling for basically three days.
In the 1990s,
the FARC controlled almost 1/3 of the country.
But starting in 2000,
with nearly $10 billion in aid from the U.S.,
the Colombian government has been waging a brutal campaign
to fight the drug trade and guerilla groups like the FARC.
Their purpose is to reduce the drug trade
that aggravates every problem Colombia faces
and exports chaos to the world, including the United States.
The initiative, called Plan Colombia,
has successfully weakened the FARC.
As of 2015,
the FARC still claimed around 8,000 active members.
Approximately 1/3 of them are women.
The World Bank estimates
that nearly 30% of Colombians live in poverty.
Women in Colombia often find themselves doubly oppressed
by poverty and by a sexist culture
that disempowers them.
That can make the FARC an attractive option.
Antonia feels that here, unlike in the city,
she is truly treated as an equal.
In a country where women are still held
to strict gender roles
and the Colombian Army does not use them on the front lines,
here in the jungle,
Antonia is a field commander and combat veteran.
We're here in a FARC camp to see what everyday life is like
for women fighting one of the world's longest ongoing wars.
The FARC has a compelling message
for the young women of Colombia --
fight for us, and you can achieve equality,
both in your life and throughout society.
And as we spend more time in the camp, it really does appear
that men and women share responsibilities,
from cooking and guard duty
to digging the trenches that provide cover during air raids.
For many women in Colombia,
there is little room for a life outside of motherhood.
By age 19,
1 in 5 women will have already had her first child.
But the women of the FARC aren't bound by the same expectations.
And when birth control fails,
these women are confronted by another expectation.
Even though abortion is not legal in Colombia
except in the most extreme circumstances,
the FARC is widely accused of routinely forcing women
to terminate their pregnancies.
The soldier's response was not atypical.
For our entire stay in the camp,
we almost never heard a complaint.
There's something about the stories we're hearing
that just, like, doesn't really make sense to me.
These people are so committed to this idea,
but then when they talk about it,
they sound like they're just repeating the ideology
and giving you kind of, like, the party line.
I feel like we're not really getting the full picture.
When men and women enlist in the FARC,
they understand it's for life.
To be part of the revolution, you have to give up everything.
But that might not be the case for much longer.
For the last several years,
the FARC and the government have been in serious peace talks,
and in September of 2015, there was a major breakthrough.
Tanja Nijmeijer is a FARC rebel
and the only woman to be involved in the peace talks
from the very beginning.
As part of the agreement,
ex-FARC combatants will not go to prison.
Now one of the biggest challenges facing Colombia is,
how do you take thousands of FARC fighters out of the jungle
and reintegrate them into society?
It's an especially difficult issue for the women of the FARC,
who spent years fighting alongside men as equals.
While it's true that there seems to be
a gender equality in the FARC camps
that just doesn't exist in Colombian society,
this is not the whole story.
We went to hear from a woman who ran away from the FARC
and now lives in a government- controlled safe house.
Women like this former rebel soldier
spend one to three months
stabilizing in the safety of the peace home
before beginning the seven-year program
that readies them to re-enter civil society.
I think more and more,
we're seeing, particularly with the FARC,
since you have such a large proportion of women,
you need to think about programming
that addresses the needs of these ex-combatants.
Virginia Bouvier is a senior advisor
at the United States Institute for Peace.
Men who went to war are seen as heroes.
They've played the role that men play in Colombian society.
They've defended their honor. They've defended their families.
Women, on the other hand, they've picked up arms,
and that's not something that women are allowed to do.
So I think there's a certain distrust of a woman
who would pick up a gun, who would dedicate her life
to something outside of her family.
At a community meeting
sponsored by the government agency for reintegration,
we meet a former rebel who is working to strengthen ties
between the mobilized soldiers and the local community.
She asks that we conceal her identity.
It's exactly this kind of inclusion of women
that will ultimately help sustain peace in Colombia.
What we've seen is that
when women have been involved in the peace process
and have had engagement with the ideas
and helped to shape the solutions,
the accords are more likely to hold.
Later, we followed a former rebel to a nearby salon
where we hear what everyday women, like her hairdresser,
think about reintegration.
Women hold tremendous sway in the family, in the community,
in their churches, in organizations.
Women have the power to help form attitudes,
and I think that the attitudinal transformation
that needs to happen in Colombia
is going to be critical to whether peace lasts or not.
For peace to hold, it's vital that FARC combatants
are successfully reintegrated into Colombian society.
It's rather shocking to know
that between 30% and 50% of peace accords don't work,
and countries revert back to war.
The stakes for FARC women reentering civil society
are quite high.
I met an ex-FARC commander who demobilized several years back,
and she said,
"There's such stigma attached to being an ex-combatant.
The jobs that I can get are practically nil.
I can't support myself. I'm not sure what to do."
She didn't say, "I'm thinking of going back to the jungle,"
but, you know, you wonder at what point,
if people can't survive,
they would be willing to pick up a gun again.
Claudia returned from the FARC more than three years ago
and is still struggling to adjust to life back home.
Even though she's halfway through
the government-sponsored rehabilitation program,
her job prospects are severely limited,
and she lives in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods
in the city.
We won't know for years
if the agreement being considered today
will be the one that ends this war for good.
But what is clear is that
as long as the needs of women go unmet
and their voices aren't part of the solution,
lasting peace will always be out of reach.
To support gender equality in Colombia,
go to viceland.com/woman.