A/HRC/42/45 has about 7.7 million. 111 While States such as Colombia have included this category of persons in their reparation programmes, 112 they have struggled to operationalize those benefits. Other domestic reparation programmes have failed to include internally displaced persons, as in the case of El Salvador.113 113. Given the increasing occurrence of internal armed conflicts in the world, and the growing number of displaced and migrant persons, the Special Rapporteur considers it essential to address the question of how to effectively include them in transitional justice processes and provide them with reparation.114 Victims of sexual violence 114. Sexual violence remains a pervasive crime and its victims remain invisible or ignored in society.115 As a consequence, they have often been excluded as beneficiaries in domestic reparation programmes. For example, victims of sexual violence have not been direct beneficiaries of reparation in Argentina or Uruguay. Children born out of rape have as a general rule been excluded from these programmes. 115. In other places, legislation on reparation for victims of sexual violence has arrived decades later. In Croatia, for example, legislators adopted the Act on the Rights of Victims of Sexual Violence during the Armed Aggression against the Republic of Croatia in the Homeland War in 2015, twenty years after the conflict. A similar situation took place in Kosovo.116 While reparation was provided by law only in 2011, 117 victims of sexual violence continued to be excluded until the law was amended in 2014. 118 Children born out of rape are not beneficiaries of reparation under this programme. 116. Safety and private spaces are essential in order for victims of sexual violence to come forward. Such spaces can be offered by trusted, neutral and discreet community workers, such as a properly trained health provider.119 The new law in Kosovo, of 2014, allows victims to come forward, protecting them from stigma and revictimization. Four civil society organizations are authorized to receive applications, help victims to complete the forms and help them gather the relevant documentation to ascertain their status as victims of sexual violence. The civil society organizations also provide them with psychosocial support. All information provided is confidential. 120 117. In Colombia, the Victims and Land Restitution Law includes various important measures for victims of sexual violence. The law includes the concept of transformative reparation,121 and the view that reparation should have a differential and a gender approach to victims. Various articles in the law develop these concepts to lower the standard of evidence required from victims, indicate the kind of treatment they are entitled to, and grant them priority access to some benefits. 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, “Global trends: forced displacement in 2017”, p. 6. Law 1448/2011, arts. 25, 72 and 78 among others. Art. 2 of executive decree 204. A/73/173, para. 42. The devastating consequences of sexual violence can be found in the expert report presented to Trial Chamber III of the International Criminal Court, on the situation in the Central African Republic, in the Case of the Prosecutor v. Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo, public redacted version of annex, 28 November 2017, ICC-01/05-01/08-3575-Conf-Exp-Anx-Corr2, para. 117. References to Kosovo shall be understood to be in the context of Security Council resolution 1244 (1999). Law No. 04/L-054 on the Status and the Rights of the Martyrs, Invalids, Veterans, Members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, Civilian Victims and their Families. Law No. 04/L-172 Amending and Supplementing Law No. 04/L-054. See also Regulation (GRK) No. 22/2015 Defining the Procedures for Recognition and Verification of the Status of Sexual Violence Victims During the Kosovo Liberation War. Sunneva Gilmore, “Medico-legal reparations for conflict-related sexual violence”, working paper (2019). Law No. 04/L-172. Law 1448/2011, arts. 13 and 28. 19