(Valledupar, Colombia) A birth boom has been predicted among former combatants of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) since the signing of the peace accords in 2016. The end of the conflict marked the beginning of the motherhood of many “ex- guerrillas ”. Five years later, a new generation is faced with the prejudices about their parents. In the Manaure reintegration space, near Valledupar, in northeastern Colombia, ex-FARC families are continuing their struggle, this time to build their family life.
Lost in kilometers of mountainous “Cerro Pintado” is Tierra Grata, a very special community living space. This former territorial space for training and reincorporation (ECTR) brings together 240 ex-combatants of the FARC and their families. They have dormitories, a community restaurant, a vegetable garden, a henhouse, a grocery store and a sewing workshop.
Since 2016, 57 children have been born there. A real baby boom to which Nicole Maria Vergel Contreras contributed.
PHOTO CARLOS MARIO PARRA RIOS, SPECIAL COLLABORATION
In the Tierra Grata space, nearly 60 children have been born since the signing of the peace accords in 2016.
Children of peace
This flirtatious 30-year-old woman welcomes us to her room with a big smile. Her eyes outlined in black pencil and her pearl necklace with a flower pendant contrast with her butterfly print top. She is the mother of a 4-year-old boy, a “child of peace”, who benefits from the community’s youth reception center. “During the war, I took the pill. It was an obligation. With my husband, we were surprised by the pregnancy. It was a good surprise, just after the signing of the peace accords. It was not easy because I was not prepared for the role of mother or for childbirth. ”
You learn a lot of the rules of life with the guerrillas, but not how to give birth by cesarean section or change the diapers. It was the nurses who helped me. My son is the best thing that ever happened in my life.
Nicole Maria Vergel Contreras, ex-guerrilla
Like all her ex-guerrilla neighbors, Nicole Maria does not regret the time spent in combat. But we feel his happiness to discover a normal civilian life, even if we do not erase decades of combat. “My husband works as a bodyguard. He is also a former guerrilla. At the moment, I am not working as I would like a second child. But I too want to become a bodyguard. I have always been a fighter. I won’t stop. “ The young mother would like to experience her second pregnancy by building memories. “For the first one, I didn’t have a phone. No way to collect memories. I hope I can immortalize every step this time around. Take a picture of my belly and share the pregnancy with my loved ones. ”
Maternity prohibited for female combatants
During the half-century of armed conflict between the guerrillas and the government, female combatants were prohibited from getting pregnant. They were obliged to abort or, in the event of childbirth, to give their child up for adoption or to a relative outside the front line. This was the case with Yardelis Olaya. “I joined the ranks of the FARC at the age of 13. I spent 22 years there, because I had decided. I came from a very poor family and wanted to make a difference. I believed in this struggle. ”
This commitment and this fight will mark her with a deep pain: that of having had to abandon her first child to continue the armed fight. “I’m really discovering motherhood now with my second 3-year-old daughter. It is a great happiness. Because the first, which is now 12 years old, I had to part with because the conditions were not met. No medical exam, no stability. We were in uncertainty. I only gave him life in the jungle. I was aware that the war would not let me stay with my daughter. So I sent it to a relative. It’s a pain that we… ”Yardelis cannot finish his sentence. Suddenly, his throat tightens. Silence settles. Tears roll down her cheeks.
She is unable to put words to this pain. She is still there and tortures her every day.
“My two daughters are with me today. But it is of course complicated with the first one. Because she had other landmarks. But we all learn together, with my partner, to live as a family. We will continue to fight for our future. The hardest part now will be to build a house and have a stable job. We intend to achieve this with the Tierra Grata project. And this, despite the stigma and the label of FARC that sticks to our skin. In five years, 296 ex-FARC have been assassinated.
Of the 13,000 former guerrillas identified, more than 3,000 continue to live in the former reincorporation centers. Women represent 40% of them. Since 2016, more than 3,500 children have been born among ex-combatants.