Living in the camps provides a vital space for community building amongst the female ex-combatants. These connections with each other were described as vital by the women. However, they have poor access to safe and viable food, housing and workable land. In some cases, they are living in worse conditions than during their time as combatants housed in the jungle. The camps are also separated from other villages and communities, creating barriers to reintegration.

Female ex-combatants experience a return (or an expectation to return) to traditional gender roles, including care work and childrearing, after demobilisation. There is a sense that any progress in gender equality that was achieved during their time in the FARC has been reversed.

Female ex-combatants expressed disillusionment with the peace process, including both government and male FARC leaders who claimed to be advancing a progressive gender equality agenda but failed to deliver in the face of a sustained gender backlash.

Having previously been banned from having children whilst FARC combatants, there is now a “baby boom” in female ex-combatant communities. The women expressed both joy that their children were growing up in times of peace and frustration at the ways the children are subjected to stigmatisation from the wider Colombian society.

Skills they have developed during their time in the group (e.g., managing conflict in a diverse group of people, building community in difficult circumstances, pushing for gender equality and so on) could be useful in a wider peacebuilding context. Yet, they are underutilised and undervalued.

Many women returning home could either not locate their families or were not welcomed back by them, resulting in severe forms of societal stigmatisation and poverty. The same applies to children born in captivity, who are stigmatised because they lack family ties, which severely reduces their economic opportunities. This can push them to criminal activity, creating a repeated cycle of discrimination and lack of opportunity to build sustainable livelihoods.

Land ownership is patrilineal in Uganda and passed down by fathers. Female ex-combatants discussed how the women rejected by their families, or those who do not know where their families are, could not access land resulting in threats to their livelihood. For their children born in captivity, this is further exacerbated by limitations on their ability to get identity cards or access to government services without knowledge and confirmation of their father and his clan.

While many long-term reintegration programmes include livelihood activities and psychosocial counselling, the long-term physical health concerns of ex-combatants are rarely factored in. Some of these are visible conflict-inflicted injuries such as bullet wounds. However, others only emerge after many years, such as back or knee problems from carrying heavy loads at a young age. These injuries can limit their ability to farm and work in labour-intensive jobs, thus threatening their livelihoods.

• Participatory projects support increased engagement and investment from participants. These approaches are more likely to create long-term changes in people’s mindsets and behaviours because they are grounded in people’s lived experiences.
• Decolonising research is needed, and participatory approaches can help. Participatory methods have the potential to contribute to the decolonisation of peacebuilding by uncovering underlying power structures and inequalities.

• There are substantial challenges and risks in participatory research. Careful design is necessary to avoid reinforcing existing power hierarchies or bringing unresolved tensions to the forefront. Further, participation requires time and resources. Planning and implementing participatory methods takes more time than traditional research, and additional costs should be factored in for activities such as co-designing workshops and providing compensation for participants, especially marginalised groups.

• Filmmaking is a powerful means of communicating research. Visual and creative mediums like filmmaking offer a powerful and complementary alternative to traditional research outputs that can help policymakers and key actors connect with the material on a deeper level. Films also create an effective way to expand the audience to the general public.

• Engage with and represent diverse women and women’s groups. Ensure meaningful participation of a diversity of women’s groups including female combatants, victims, and Indigenous groups in all stages of the peace process. Incorporate and utilise their skills, experiences, and perspectives in the peace process. Specifically ensure there is an ongoing exchange with marginalised groups of women during and after agreements are reached.

• Mainstream and fund gender work holistically. Mainstream diverse gender perspectives through all aspects of potential agreements including disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration (DDR), land rights, economic opportunity and transitional justice. Guarantee continued funding for gender issues throughout the implementation process.

• Connect with and support ex-combatants. Seek engagement with female members of armed organisations to build bridges across the feminist movement and support peer-to-peer learning for other female ex-combatants.

• Address living conditions and livelihoods for women and their families. Focus on safe and sustainable housing, food and work opportunities for female ex-combatants. Programmes must also increase attention and resources directed towards children of war and the compounded forms of stigmatisation and violence they face.

• Marginalised communities must be engaged with and supported. Continuously engage and support marginalised communities in post-conflict parts of the country, especially female returnees and their children born in captivity.

• Processing of birth certificates and national ID are essential. Currently, if you do not have a birth certificate and you do not know your paternal lineage, you cannot get a national ID, which means you cannot access any government services. This policy needs to be removed and the process simplified to get a birth certificate and national ID when parents and birth location are unknown, so that children born in captivity can access government services.

• Long-term health matters. Programmes working with female ex-combatants must account for long-term health impacts when developing reintegration planning. The negative impacts of conflict do not end with the conflict – they linger and continue to harm women physically, mentally, financially and socially.

• Proactively address stigmatisation and discrimination. Work with a wide range of actors and community leaders to address stigmatisation and discrimination of people formerly associated with armed groups. This should be driven by the needs of the affected population.