Building effective transitional justice mechanisms requires the meaningful inclusion of conflict victims' preferences in decision-making processes. However, a persistent gap exists between the outcomes desired by political elites and the needs expressed by victims. In this paper, we hypothesize that increasing political elites' exposure to victims' lived experiences and preferences can bridge this gap. We test this hypothesis through a large-scale, non-deceptive field experiment conducted during the 2023 Colombian local and regional elections in collaboration with leaders of victims' organizations. Victim leaders randomly varied the content of their communications with 100,000 candidates, emphasizing the importance of prioritizing victims' needs in policy-making. The messages varied in two key ways: some increased the salience of victims' needs, while others additionally conveyed the victim leader's stance on a contentious issue—negotiations with illegal armed groups. Importantly, one victim leader supported negotiations, while the other opposed them.

Our findings provide evidence for each hypothesis. First, we show that communications highlighting victims' needs increase the salience of these issues among political elites. Second, we demonstrate that political elites' stances on negotiations with armed groups are influenced by the positions articulated by victim leaders. These results suggest that direct exposure to victims' voices not only raises awareness but also influences political elites' policy preferences, offering a promising pathway to better align transitional justice mechanisms with the priorities of those most affected by conflict.