When Colombia was experiencing its harshest time of the conflict, an 8-year-old girl was recruited by the Farc, forced to carry a rifle and commit the worst crimes once morest the civilian population.
The little girl had difficult days, as she was forced to change the dolls for the explosives, her colorful dresses por a camouflaged and the caresses of the home by orders given by the cruelest leaders.
At the age of 16, she was captured by the authorities when she was doing intelligence to install a bomb in the Colombian Agency for Reintegration. while she was part of the Teófilo Forero mobile column, the bloodiest of the extinct FARC.
Alejandro Eder, former director of the aforementioned agency, told BLU Radio that the girl immediately passed into the care of the ICBF and began his reincorporation process as soon as he turned 18.
“I had a very complex situation, she was illiterate, had no family ties and had very strong traumas associated with the stress she was subjected to every day,” Eder said.
According to the story told by the little girl to Alejandro, the girl was taken by the aforementioned guerrilla to the mountain following offering himself as cannon fodder so that his brother who suffered from epilepsy would not be recruited.
“After two weeks they put her in a fight so that he would learn to feel the smell of gunpowder and blood”, Eder specified.
“It was 2010 when I met her. She had a strong character and she was very angry because the government was withdrawing support for university studies. She looked at me and said: ‘Counselor, those men from the Farc took away my childhood and stole my dreams, now I’m not going to let myself be robbed by anyone the dream of being a doctor. I want to be a cardiologist and a neurologist,’” she pointed out.
It is that at that time the Governmentor only supported technical and technological education, but not for higher education.
“When I heard regarding his story, I told him that what we might do was a movie, tell it to Caracol TV and that with those rights he might pay for his studies”accurate.
“In 2011 we sat down with Gonzalo Córdoba and Juana Uribe, they loved the story and a solid structure was set up so that the money was allocated to their education”Eder pointed out.
The raw anecdotes of the young woman allowed to give life to ‘Belky Rocío Bustamante Pinzón’, a character played by Ana María Estupiñán in the series ‘La Niña’ and that served as a means to tell the whole world regarding the harsh crime of child recruitment in the country.
“The great news is that today (May 31, 2022), that girl managed to enter university, finished her studies and is ready to graduate, she is already a doctor! Eder specified.
“This is beautiful because it shows that if you put your mind to it you can generate any change, second: that the wounds of a war as long as the Colombian one can be healed, but it takes many years and a lot of dedication”, insisted Eder.
“If she hadn’t been captured at 16, she would have ended up dead or mutilated, as it happened and happens today to many children in the country”, said.
According to Alexander, the story of ‘La Niña’ motivated him to investigate more regarding
forced recruitment
juvenile and found that children have been exploited since they were 7 years old by FARC, ELN, dissidents or drug traffickers.
“When I worked on reintegration processes, more than 73,000 people were helped and at least 50% were recruited as minors and 40% were recruited as minors under 15 years of agethis is the most heinous crime among all heinous crimes,” Eder insisted.
“I had to receive boys and girls coming out of the bush disguised as little guerrillas pulling rifles that were bigger than them, all malnourished. This is a crime that has to stop, because it is still happening.”he added.
Finally, ‘La Niña’ will receive her title as a doctor on July 26. Eder will go to his grade and hopes to be able to tell the world more regarding his story.
“Colombia must deal with this scourge. No one here punishes crimes once morest children and that must stop so that children never return to submit to the worst violence”he concluded.
Here is the first chapter of the series ‘La Niña’:
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