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When Protection Fails: Effects of Military Bases on Sexual Violence in Colombia
Presented by:
Sakina Shibuya
Practice Job Talk
Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics
University of Wisconsin - Madison
Thursday, October 3, 2024
3:45 pm-5:00 pm
Taylor-Hibbard Seminar Room (Rm103)
Sexual violence committed by soldiers is ubiquitous across the world. This paper investigates the impact of military base presence on sexual violence, fertility, and child support disputes in Colombia, a nation with a recent experience of large-scale growth in military base presence. Using a dataset constructed from diverse sources, we track military base locations across Colombian municipalities from 1998 to 2016. Employing an event-study approach, we identify the causal effects of military bases on host communities. Our findings reveal that the presence of military bases significantly increases sexual violence, with a 72% rise in registered cases over the course of 15 years after the introduction of a military base. Despite this increase in sexual violence, we find no significant changes in fertility or child support disputes. These results are not driven by changes in population or security conditions. This study advances the literature on conflict-related sexual violence and the broader consequences of military base presence on local populations.