When the person who caused harm was also a victim: understanding context without erasing accountability

A person may have been recruited as a minor, separated from their family, subjected to threats, or exposed for years to a worldview in which violence was presented as necessary.

Later, that same person may have taken part in actions that caused suffering to others.

Accepting this complexity is uncomfortable because it challenges a seemingly simple divide: on one side, those who suffered the harm; on the other, those who caused it.

However, understanding a person's trajectory does not amount to erasing their accountability.

Explaining how a person came to cause harm does not mean claiming the harm was inevitable, right or irrelevant.

Two truths can coexist

It is possible to recognize that someone was a victim of recruitment, coercion or manipulation while, at the same time, examining the acts they must answer for.

Denying either dimension weakens the process.

When only their initial victimization is seen, there is a risk of rendering invisible the people who later suffered because of their actions.

When only their participation in the violence is seen, the mechanisms through which organizations and social contexts turn vulnerable people into instruments of conflict can be overlooked.

Social maturity consists in being able to hold both truths without using one to cancel out the other.

Understanding is not justifying

Justifying means presenting a harmful act as acceptable or automatically absolving the person of any responsibility.

Understanding means investigating the conditions, decisions, pressures and narratives that made that act possible.

This distinction is essential.

A society that does not understand how violence is produced is less prepared to prevent it. But a society that uses context to make accountability disappear also abandons its victims.

Not all responsibilities are equal

Recognizing differences does not mean relativizing the harm.

The person who designed a structure of violence does not carry the same responsibility as the one who benefited from it, the one who gave orders, the one who acted under direct threat, or the one who was recruited while still a minor.

A serious process must examine:

• Degree of power.
• Capacity for decision-making.
• Age.
• Length of time within the organization.
• Benefits received.
• Level of coercion.
• Concrete participation.
• Real possibilities of leaving the structure.

Treating every trajectory as identical may create an appearance of equality, but not necessarily justice.

At the same time, having suffered coercion does not automatically make any later action harmless. Every case needs a rigorous evaluation, avoiding both indiscriminate condemnation and simplistic absolution.

Victims must remain at the center

Understanding the history of the person who caused harm should never require the victim to minimize, explain, or forgive their suffering.

The victim has the right to:

• Be heard.
• Receive information.
• Protect their safety.
• Not take part in encounters.
• Reject reconciliation.
• Set limits.
• Demand that accountability not disappear behind a psychological or social explanation.

Reconciliation cannot become a moral expectation imposed on the person who suffered the harm.

Even within restorative processes, a direct encounter is not always appropriate. There can be reparation without personal contact, and acknowledgment without reconciliation.

How indoctrination and dehumanization work

Violent structures tend to create closed narratives. They divide the world between allies and enemies, present obedience as a virtue, and reduce the capacity to recognize the humanity of those on the other side.

Over time, a person can stop perceiving the other as an individual with a history, a family and rights. They transform them into a category: enemy, traitor, threat or obstacle.

Breaking these narratives does not consist merely of providing different information. It requires processes through which the person can:

• Critically examine what they learned.
• Recognize the consequences of their actions.
• Recover their own judgment.
• Listen to other experiences.
• Develop non-violent forms of belonging.
• Build an identity that does not depend on confrontation.

This takes time. It does not happen through a single conversation, nor simply by leaving an organization.

Accountability must be oriented toward non-repetition

Purely declared responsibility can remain just words.

Society needs concrete signs of transformation:

• Cooperation with the truth.
• Specific acknowledgment of the harm.
• Fulfillment of commitments.
• Verifiable distancing from violent structures.
• Participation in reparation processes.
• Rebuilding of community ties.
• Actions that reduce the risk of repetition.

The question should not only be whether the person claims to be sorry, but what they are sustainably doing with that acknowledgment.

A reflection with global application

This analysis does not belong exclusively to one country.

It can apply to minors recruited by armed groups, young people drawn into extremist organizations, people subjected to criminal coercion, members of violent groups, and communities trying to rebuild themselves after political, ethnic or religious conflicts.

The names of the institutions change, but the questions remain universal:

• How do we protect victims?
• How do we establish differentiated responsibilities?
• How do we prevent violence from happening again?
• How do we reintegrate without denying what happened?
• How do we rebuild coexistence without relying on forgetting?

What can PACTO contribute?

PACTO can help organize communication processes in contexts of reparation, reintegration and coexistence, but it must do so within strict limits.

When appropriate, it can facilitate:

• Preparation of conversations.
• Identification of needs and limits.
• Formulation of commitments.
• Recording of voluntary agreements.
• Coordination among individuals, families, professionals and institutions.
• Follow-up of relational reparation processes.

Conclusion

Understanding serves justice when it helps establish more precise responsibilities, prevent repetition and build paths toward transformation.

It stops serving justice when it is used to silence victims or make consequences disappear.

The more rigorous question is not always "were they a victim or a perpetrator?" In some cases, the answer will be: they were a victim at one stage of their life and responsible for decisions or actions afterward.

Social work consists of addressing both realities with truth, protection and accountability.