Understanding Sexual Violence in the Colombian Armed Conflict: Victim Characteristics, Spatial Clustering, and Temporal Contagion

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Abstract Background Sexual violence is one of the most severe forms of civilian victimisation in the Colombian armed conflict. Despite its importance, population-scale analysis of conflict-related sexual violence patterns is limited, something essential for informing public health responses and prevention strategies. Methods We analysed two national databases of armed-conflict-related data from Colombia: the statutory Register of Victims and the National Centre for Historical Memory. We profiled victim demographics and used i) log-Gaussian Cox process modelling to identify geospatial clustering and ii) Hawkes process modelling to examine temporal contagion. Analyses covered the entire conflict period (1964-2024) and a recent period (2014-2024). Results Victims were predominantly female (≈90%) and disproportionately from ethnic minorities. Sexual violence showed geographic clustering, with a spatial range of up to 2.4km for the entire conflict period and reducing to 1.7km after adjustment for population density. In 2014-2024, baseline intensity decreased but spatial clustering extended over wider areas (range = 2.5km unadjusted; 1.9km adjusted). For the entire conflict, the unadjusted Hawkes model indicated near-critical temporal dependency (branching ratio = 0.99) and multi-day temporal contagion (half-life = 3.7 days). The model, adjusted for changes in background rates, revealed little evidence for temporal contagion independent of changes in background rates. For 2014-2024, the unadjusted model similarly showed near-critical branching (branching ratio = 1.00) with extended decay (half-life = 10.04 days), whereas background rate-adjusted models indicated little evidence for temporal contagion beyond background rate changes. Conclusions Sexual violence in the Colombian armed conflict may be more widely present than is apparent from raw event counts and has shifted from concentrated, high-intensity incidents to more dispersed patterns. Areas of historically high prevalence remain critical for victim support. The temporal dynamics suggest that prevention efforts may benefit from proactively addressing long-term structural and contextual determinants.

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