Human Rights Defenders in Colombia As reported by the
National and International Campaign for the Right to Defend Human Rights, and as documented regularly in reports by leading human rights organisations, . In 2010, according to the Colombian-based human rights organisation
Somos Defensores, at least 174 acts of aggression towards human rights defenders were committed. This included 32 murders and 109 death threats. As Human Rights First reports, attacks against human rights defenders include also 'smear campaigns and break-ins, threatening and omnipresent surveillance, physical assaults, kidnapping, violence directed toward family members, and assassination attempts'. The Colombian
government has a special protection program that seeks to protect those under threat. The Colombian embassy in Washington states that the protection program 'offers long-term services based on specific needs of vulnerable individuals and groups'. In spite of this, the figures for the first semester of 2011 showed an increase of 126% in acts of aggressions committed against human rights defenders from 2010.
Paramilitary groups were held responsible in 59% of the cases, state security forces were held responsible for 10% and the guerrilla groups 2%. Justice for Colombia reports that between August 2010 and June 2011, there were 104 murders with direct ramifications for human rights concerns in Colombia. Those murdered included human rights defenders, trade unionists and community leaders. On average, according to these figures, one murder took place every three days. Human rights defenders find little protection in the Colombian
justice system; 784 human rights defenders were threatened, attacked or murdered between 2002 and 2009, there has been a conviction in only 10 of these cases.
Labour Rights in Colombia Colombia is widely referred to as the most dangerous country in the world to be a trade unionist. The 2011 Annual Survey of Violation of Trade Union Rights published by the
International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) reports that 49 trade unionists were killed in Colombia in 2010, more than in the rest of the world put together. Between January and August 2011, 19 trade unionists have been reported killed. The ITUC reports that between 2000 and 2010 Colombia has accounted for 63.12% of trade unionists murdered globally. According to
Human Rights Watch and Justice for Colombia, most of these murders are attributed to right-wing paramilitaries, whilst some are directly attributed to state forces. Amnesty International reported in 2007 that for cases in which the perpetrator was known, paramilitaries were responsible for 49% of the attacks against trade-unionists, state forces were responsible for 43%, and the guerrilla forces were responsible for 2%. According to the National Labour School (ENS), a Colombian NGO monitoring trade union violence, impunity for crimes committed against trade unionists is running at 94%. Trade union membership in Colombia has fallen dramatically since the 1980s. According to Justice for Colombia, a British NGO campaigning for human rights and an end to trade union violence in Colombia, this is due to a combination of factors: 'Less than 5% of Colombian workers are members of trade unions – the lowest level in the Americas. Less than twenty years ago it was double that figure but violence against trade unionists, changes in the labour market and anti-trade union policies have led to a huge decrease in membership. Today only 850,000 Colombians are members of a trade union'. As demonstrated by figures from the ENS, such is the nature of the Colombian workforce, it is very difficult for the majority of Colombian workers to join a trade union: 'of Colombia's 18 million working people...11 million are working in the informal economy....Of the remaining 7 million people (who do have formal employment) only 4 million benefit from permanent employment contracts'. Up until 2010, Colombia had featured every year for 21 years on the ILO blacklist of countries to be investigated for non-compliance with conventions concerning labour rights. Colombia's removal from the ILO blacklist list in 2010 was cited by Colombian officials as a demonstration that respect for trade unions and for labour rights had improved in Colombia. However, the UK's Trade Union Congress (TUC) points out that in 2010 the ILO also made an agreement with the Colombian government to send a high level commission to visit the country in response to the continued violation of labour rights. Two of Colombia's three major trade union centres, the CUT and the CTC, released a statement in 2010 in response to the decisions made by the ILO: 'the acceptance of a High Level Tripartite Mission on the part of the Colombian government implies that the State accepts it has not complied with ILO requirements in a satisfactory way.... at no point has ILO indicated that the issues of human rights and freedom of association have been solved'.
Legal Rights in Colombia Whilst the right to due process in all legal processes is a right decreed to Colombians in article 29 of the Colombian constitution, human rights observers regularly report failures to provide this and indeed other legal rights. The 2011 report from the
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for Colombia reports that 'the prosecution and arbitrary detentions of human rights defenders on the basis of uncorroborated information provided mainly by informants, demobilized persons and military intelligence reports, continue to be of concern'. According to the respected Jesuit human rights defender, Padre Javier Giraldo, between August 2002 and August 2004 there were 6332 arbitrary detentions. Shortcomings in legal processes have been reported in cases concerning trade unionists, community activists, academics, and other groups and individuals who, whilst seeking the advancement of rights in their relevant spheres, may oppose certain elements of state policy. According to both Colombian and international organisations, the response from the state has often been in the form of illegal criminal proceedings. Such characteristics led Human Rights First, in a report looking into the prosecution process in cases brought against human rights defenders, to conclude that 'corruption and failure to abide by national and international due process standards are endemic to the criminal justice system in Colombia'. Justice for Colombia talks of 'over 5,000' political prisoners. The British MP Jim McGovern released a statement in 2010 in support of a campaign run by Justice for Colombia calling for the release of Colombia's political prisoners: 'These people are innocent men and women who have been imprisoned simply because they disagree with the Government or criticise Government policies. The Colombian authorities have to understand that jailing people in order to silence their opinions is completely unacceptable'. According to the Colombian victims' organisation MOVICE, these detentions are used to obstruct the activities carried out by those working to denounce human rights abuses whilst at the same time acting to delegitimise and criminalise their work. In August 2011, the senator and victims' rights leader Ivan Cepeda revealed that he was informed of a murder plot being planned against him by two state security prison guards. Between 1984 and 1994 Colombia suffered the genocide of a political party called the
Patriotic Union (UP). The UP was born as a result of negotiations held in 1984 between the
FARC, Colombia's oldest and largest guerrilla group, and the Colombian government that were to allow FARC members and supporters to follow an electoral path in order to advance their political objectives. By 1994, between 3,000 and 5,000 members were assassinated in a systematic campaign to wipe-out the party and its members. A Colombian human rights organisation dedicated to the search for justice for the victims of the UP calls the genocide 'an alarming and representative case of a persecution of an opposition movement'. In 2006, a scandal was uncovered in Colombia which showed a program of espionage against perceived political opponents of the government had been in operation. The wiretapping of phones and emails of human rights defenders, judges, politicians and international human rights organisations was carried out by the state intelligence agency, the Department for Administrative Security (DAS). The 2011 report from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights commented on the continuing developments in the scandal: 'Investigations continued on former directors for illegal surveillance between 2005 and 2008. Statements by DAS senior personnel implicated former senior officials of the President's office as beneficiaries of the illegally obtained information'. The Constitutional Court was commended by the report for establishing 'criteria for determining the legal minimum wage, the right to fair remuneration and maintenance of purchasing power', but the unequal land distribution and lack of agrarian reform was a further concern mentioned by the committee. According to the UK pressure group ABColombia, 0.4% of landholders own 61% of the rural land in Colombia. In 2015, the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE) reported that 27.8% of the population were living below the poverty line, of which 7.9% in "extreme poverty". In rural zones, extreme poverty is as high as 18.0%. ==Vulnerable populations==