July, 07 2010, 03:39pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Diana Duarte, Media Coordinator,Phone: +1 212 627 0444,Email:,media@madre.org
Using International Law to Wage Peace in Colombia
In recent decades, human rights advocates have won
passage of a system of international human rights treaties, helping to
address a wide range of social justice concerns. More and
more, local activists are devising ways to use these international
standards to make real change at home.
WASHINGTON
In recent decades, human rights advocates have won
passage of a system of international human rights treaties, helping to
address a wide range of social justice concerns. More and
more, local activists are devising ways to use these international
standards to make real change at home.
Each
major international human rights treaty has a corresponding "treaty
body" or committee responsible for monitoring whether its members are
fulfilling their obligations. One of these important
treaties is the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(ICCPR), which guarantees such rights as the right to life, the right to
be free from torture and the right to protection from unlawful
imprisonment. The treaty body for the ICCPR is the Human
Rights Committee, and as a member state, Colombia must regularly defend
its record before that committee.
In July
2010, women human rights advocates will have the opportunity to
participate in that international review of Colombia's record. The
people of Colombia have faced decades of armed conflict and rampant
human rights violations. MADRE has joined with our partner
organizations in Colombia to submit a report to the Human Rights
Committee that gives voice to those lived experiences.
The sections below outline the evidence that we have
gathered to challenge any attempt to diminish the severity of the human
rights crises in Colombia. We call on the Human Rights
Committee to respect the calls of Colombian women human rights advocates
and to demand concrete action from the Colombian government.
The Contours of Colombia's Conflict
- For
over 40 years, Colombians have endured an armed conflict over their
country's highly concentrated sources of natural wealth, especially
land.
- In the mid-1960s, the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia (FARC) arose as a peasant movement demanding land
redistribution and social reform from the government.
- Since
the 1990s, the conflict has been a three-way war: the FARC is
battling the government; the government is fighting to eliminate
the FARC; and brutal paramilitary groups function symbiotically
with the government and Army to protect the interests of powerful
elites.
- Instead of battling one another directly,
Colombia's armed groups usually attack civilians suspected of
siding with their enemy. The main victims of the conflict are women
and families, hundreds of thousands of whom have been assaulted,
displaced from their homes or killed.
For
more information, read MADRE
Talking Points: The Role of the US in Colombia's Conflict.
Forced Displacement and the Right
to Land of Indigenous Peoples and Afro-Colombians
- Under
Colombia's Constitution, Indigenous Peoples and Afro-Colombians have
been granted recognition of their collective rights to their land.
About 28%
of the Colombian territory has been recognized as belonging to
Indigenous Peoples.
- However, these communities have
long suffered sizable losses of lands from forced displacement
caused by the internal armed conflict and by projects relating to
infrastructure and natural resource exploitation.
- Armed groups in Colombia have long sought control over the
lands of Afro-Colombians and Indigenous Peoples for military and economic reasons, forcing them to either
collaborate with the armed groups or abandon their lands.
- In
2009, the Colombian Constitutional
Court warned that at least 34 Indigenous
Peoples "are in danger of cultural or physical extermination due
to the internal armed conflict."
- A
Snapshot of the Reality: Indigenous Peoples and
Afro-Colombians have been denied their right to land, guaranteed in
Colombian and international law, and the Colombian government has
taken no measures to redress this. The Indigenous Embera
Katio People have been displaced from their lands by the
construction of the Urra dam, losing their connection to their
traditional ways of life. The Afro-Colombian communities
of the Curvarado and Jiguamiando river basins have struggled
against the installment of palm plantations in their territories
since the 1990s, and as a result, they have been targeted by
paramilitaries.
Forced Displacement of Women
- Almost 60% of
displaced women have no job or income. In
2008, studies reported that in larger cities, 60% of
all displaced households are experiencing or are at risk of food
insecurity, and in
smaller cities the rate rises to about 71%.
- Difficulty finding work, together with lack of access to
food, housing, health care and education, entrenches poverty and
social exclusion among both displaced Indigenous and Afro-Colombian
women.
- Indigenous
and Afro-Colombian women face racism, as well as low levels of
education and poverty which perpetuates displacement, threatens their access to work, pursuit of cultural practices,
participation in community life and safety from gender violence.
- Furthermore, displacement cuts off access to traditional
foods and medicines for Indigenous women. Traditional
organizational processes, languages, practices and teachings are
weakened and in some cases lost.
Reproductive
Health
- In May 2006, the Colombian Constitutional Court
partially decriminalized abortion, making exceptions for cases of
documented rape, danger to the physical or mental health of the
woman and fetal abnormality.
- However,
since that decision, medical personnel and health care institutions
have misused the principle of "conscientious objection," which
allows for a medical provider to cite their conscience in denying a
woman an abortion. This has led to mistreatment
of and discrimination against women seeking reproductive health
services. Some clinics have made their doctors sign
blanket declarations of "conscientious objection" to refuse to
provide abortion services altogether.
- Alejandro Ordonez, the
Colombian official responsible for supervising compliance with the
Constitution and for protecting human rights, is also responsible for
prosecuting and punishing health care providers who violate a
woman's right to access safe and legal abortions. Yet,
he has refused to investigate the human rights violation
constituted by the misuse of the "conscientious objection"
exception.
- In a number of cases, judges have refused to rule
on cases relating to the misuse of "conscientious objection" to
deny a woman's access to abortion. Moreover, Ordonez
has ordered public officials to ignore Colombian laws that
decriminalize abortion.
- Individual doctors who object to
performing abortions have the legal duty to refer the woman to a
doctor who will carry out the procedure.
- Women in
Colombia experience both physical and mental suffering as a result of
the denial of the right to therapeutic abortion, including in cases
in which pregnancy endangers the life of the woman. Women
experiencing complications of pregnancy and needing therapeutic
abortion are forced to suffer from painful, frightening and
life-threatening conditions, often for many months.
- Women
experiencing unsafe abortions or other obstetric emergencies and who are
often in extreme pain and require immediate treatment also fear
the consequence of prosecution for seeking out an illegal abortion.
Added to the fear of being prosecuted is the fear that needed
treatment will be denied by doctors citing "conscientious
objection."
- A Snapshot of the Reality: Blanca,
a 13-year old girl who was raped and as a result became pregnant,
was sent to seven different health care providers, all of whom
refused to provide an abortion, arguing conscientious objection and
willfully ignoring their obligation to immediately refer her to an
adequate provider. The girl was ultimately forced to carry out a
high-risk pregnancy and give the baby up for adoption. She suffered
permanent health consequences including scoliosis and lung damage.
Sexual Violence
- In
2006, the Committee on the Rights of Children stated that the
widespread discrimination against women in Colombia puts them at
greater risk of recruitment by armed forces as well as sexual
exploitation, internal displacement and continued violation of
their rights.
- In 2006,
the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Rapporteur stated, "The
violence and discrimination against women is not solely the
product of the armed conflict-they are fixtures in
the lives of women during times of peace that worsen and degenerate
during the internal strife."
- Sexualized
violence is one of the primary causes of the forced displacement
of women in Colombia. It is estimated that two out of
every ten women are forced
to leave their homes because of gender violence.
- An
analysis by two Colombian women's organizations established that acts
of sexual violence have occurred in a range of conflict-related
situations, such as during active attacks, as a result of
forced displacement, or targeting women within armed groups as a
means of control.
- Girl members of illegal armed
groups are particularly vulnerable to grave sexual violence. They
are forced to use inadequate and often harmful methods of
contraception and forced
to have an abortion if they become pregnant.
- A
Snapshot of the Reality: One former girl child
soldier told the story that her commanding officer one day
announced that he would separate the virgins from the other girls.
They were forced to have sex with the commanding officers.
Many girls later testified that they knew their lives were
at stake and that their choices were either to be raped or killed.
Threats
against Women Human Rights Defenders
- Patterns
of threats and harassment against human rights defenders, and
often their families, continue to worsen in Colombia. Journalists,
trade unionists, magistrates, lawyers, student and youth activists,
women defenders, Indigenous and Afro-Colombian leaders suffer
physical violence and threats because of their legitimate efforts
to uphold human rights and fundamental freedoms.
- When community members are
perceived to sympathize with adversary groups, often simply for not
showing enough resistance, they are punished by paramilitaries and
guerrilla groups. In testimonies gathered by MADRE
and our sister organization Taller de Vida, community leaders
shared stories of harassment and threats made against their life,
forcing them to flee their homes on little or no notice, leaving
all they own behind.
- Extrajudicial executions have
been a widely documented practice committed by military units
across the country. Following a
fact-finding mission to Colombia in June 2009, Phillip Alston, the
Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, stated
that extrajudicial killings of women activists are used
"especially in order to control and instill fear in rural
populations, to intimidate elected officials, to punish those
alleged to be collaborating with the government, or to promote
criminal objectives." - Instead
of protecting the honor and reputation of its citizens, the Government
of Colombia is actively complicit in stigmatizing those who defend human
rights. Women human rights defenders have been accused
by high-level officials of being linked to guerrillas or terrorists. Government
officials are making public accusations to sully the reputations of
independent women's rights activists.
- Other women human rights
defenders have faced death threats, lost family
members to arbitrary killings, or have been jailed without just
cause because of their work defending against and exposing human
rights violations in Colombia.
- A
Snapshot of the Reality: On June 14th, 2010, Aida
Quilcue, an Indigenous women's human rights defender received a
message threatening the lives of members of various Colombian human
rights organizations. The message was sent after activists organized a
public hearing to denounce human rights violations committed
against Indigenous Peoples by the government security forces,
paramilitaries and the FARC.
The Use of
Child Soldiers
- In 1999, Colombia
outlawed the use of child soldiers in its army. This means that
conscripts must be at least 18 years of age.
- Researchers
from MADRE conducted over 30 interviews with former child solders
from the capital city of Bogota and the city of Pereira. The age of
recruitment ranged from 10 to 17 years of age and participation
varied through most of the identified armed groups in Colombia.
- Recruitment
stories ranged from joining armed groups voluntarily due to
abandonment, being orphaned, or fleeing domestic or sexual violence
or other issues at home. Some children were lured into joining
armed groups with promises of a better life only to find the
promises were false and that they faced the punishment of death if
they tried to escape.
- Since
2006, the Attorney-General's Office has found
109 bodies of children - mainly victims of armed groups - in
clandestine graves. According to testimonies of former child soldiers,
children recruited by armed groups were frequently killed for
"insubordination" ranging from stealing food from the group's reserves
to trying to escape.
- A Snapshot of the
Reality: One former child soldier reported
that a friend who in desperation stole sugar from the food supplies was
made to face a "War Council." Members of the
armed group were directed to vote on whether or not his punishment
should be death. The next day, they dug a hole in the
ground and shot and killed him.
What
Needs to Change
The
Colombian Government must:
- Restore communities to their
lands and respect the collective land ownership of Afro-Colombians
and Indigenous Peoples. Communities must be
guaranteed the right to prior consultation and consent with regard
to massive infrastructure and natural resource exploitation
projects. The government must guarantee that policies
to ensure the safe return of displaced peoples are implemented
promptly and with care.
- Protect
a woman's right to access safe and legal abortion.
This means that health care providers may not illegally
claim "conscientious objection," and judges may not refuse judgment
on cases where women have been denied abortions. Furthermore,
women must be guaranteed effective access to sexual and
reproductive healthcare information and services - especially young
women and rural women.
- Address
the root causes of sexual violence against women and ensure their
access to health, education and other necessary social services.
The state must prioritize its responsibility to
investigate, prosecute and punish perpetrators of sexual violence
and to fund special support services for survivors of such
violence.
- End stigma against human
rights defenders and initiate investigations to seek justice for
those who have been attacked and killed. Human
rights defenders deserve not only physical protection, but the
freedom to participate in politics at the local and national
levels.
- Stop the use of child
soldiers. Government policies must address risk
factors that make children vulnerable to recruitment and institute
programs that support children facing abuse at home, that address
the basic needs of displaced families and that provide training to
teachers to recognize warning signs.
MADRE is an international women's human rights organization that partners with community-based women's groups to advance women's human rights, challenge injustice and create social change in contexts of war, conflict, disaster and their aftermath. MADRE advocates for a world in which all people enjoy individual and collective human rights; natural resources are shared equitably and sustainably; women participate effectively in all aspects of society; and all people have a meaningful say in policies that affect their lives. For more information about MADRE, visit www.madre.org.
LATEST NEWS
Stateless Palestinian Woman Details 'Very Traumatizing' Abuse Suffered in ICE Detention
Trump administration immigration officials reportedly dismissed Ward Sakeik's ordeal as a "sob story."
Jul 06, 2025
A newlywed Palestinian woman from Texas released from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention earlier this week says she was shackled for long periods, denied food and water, and subjected to other human rights abuses during nearly five months in ICE custody—all because she is a stateless person.
Ward Sakeik, 22, was born in Saudi Arabia to Palestinian parents from Gaza. Because Saudi Arabia does not grant birthright citizenship to the children of foreign nationals, Sakeik was officially stateless when her family legally emigrated to the United States when she was 8 years old.
“I was moved around like cattle.”
Ward Sakeik, US college graduate and homeowner, speaks out following 140 days in ICE hellhole pic.twitter.com/bNTgs7362h
— World Socialist Web Site (@WSWS_Updates) July 5, 2025
Sakeik's parents subsequently applied for—and were denied—asylum in the U.S. but were allowed to remain legally in the country pending routine check-ins with ICE.
After graduating high school and the University of Texas, Arlington, starting a wedding photography business, marrying a U.S. citizen, and beginning the process of obtaining a green card, Sakeik and her husband went on their honeymoon in the U.S. Virgin Islands. She was detained shortly after arriving back in the United States after Customs and Border Protection agents flagged her for flying over international waters—a move that Department of Homeland Security officials said violated immigration policy.
"After a few hours from returning from our honeymoon, I was put in a gray tracksuit and shackles," Sakeik said at a press conference following her release. "I was handcuffed for 16 hours without any water or food on the bus. I have moved around like cattle. And the U.S. government attempted to dump me in a part of the world where I don't know where I'm going and what I'm doing or anything."
"We were not given any water or food, and we could smell the driver eating Chick-fil-A," she continued. "We would ask for water, bang on the door for food, and he would just turn up the radio and act like he wasn't listening to us."
Sakeik said unhygienic conditions at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas—where an ICE officer was shot in the neck during a Friday evening attack—caused widespread illness among detainees.
"The restrooms are also very, very, very unhygienic," she said. "The beds have rust everywhere. They're not properly maintained. And cockroaches, grasshoppers, spiders, you name it, are all over the facility. Girls would get bit."
"I wouldn't wish this upon anybody," Sakeik said during a Saturday interview on CNN. "It was very hard, very traumatizing, and very, very difficult."
Eric Lee, an attorney for Sakeik, told CNN that immigration officials dismissed Sakeik's account as a "sob story."
"I guess what we would ask the American people is, 'Who are they gonna believe, their lying eyes or the statements of the people who are responsible for carrying out what are really crimes against humanity here in the United States?'" Lee added.
Sakeik said she now plans to advocate on behalf of women and girls imprisoned by ICE.
"I... want the world to know that the women who do come here come here for a better life, but they're criminalized for that," she said. "They are dehumanized, and they're stripped away from their rights. We have been treated as a 'less-than' just simply for wanting a better life."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Exactly What We Would Expect': Climate Scientists Weigh in on Deadly Texas Flooding
"It's not a question of whether climate change played a role—it's only a question of how much," said one expert.
Jul 06, 2025
As the death toll from catastrophic flooding in Texas continued to rise, climate scientists this weekend underscored the link between more frequent and severe extreme weather events and the worsening climate emergency caused primarily by humans burning fossil fuels.
Officials said Sunday that at least 69 people died in the floods, 59 of them in Kerr County. Of the 27 missing girls from Camp Mystic—some of whom were sleeping just 225 feet from the Guadalupe River when its waters surged during flash flooding Friday—11 are still missing.
While some local officials blamed what they said were faulty forecasts from the National Weather Service—which has been hit hard by staffing cuts ordered by the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency in line with Project 2025—meteorologists and climate scientists including Daniel Swain of the University of California, Los Angeles have refuted such allegations, citing multiple NWS warnings of potentially deadly flooding.
However, some experts asserted that vacancies at key NWS posts raise questions about forecasters' ability to coordinate emergency response with local officials.
Climate scientists do concur that human-caused global heating is causing stronger and more frequent extreme weather events including flooding.
"This kind of record-shattering rain (caused by slow-moving torrential thunderstorms) event is *precisely* that which is increasing the fastest in a warming climate," Swain wrote in a statement. "So it's not a question of whether climate change played a role—it's only a question of how much."
As Jeff Masters and Bob Henson wrote Saturday for Yale Climate Connections:
Many studies have confirmed that human-caused climate change is making the heaviest short-term rainfall events more intense, largely by warming the world's oceans and thus sending more water vapor into the atmosphere that can fuel heavy rain events. Sea surface temperatures this week have been as much as 1°F below the 1981-2010 average for early July in the western Gulf [of Mexico] and Caribbean, but up to 1°F above average in the central Gulf. Long-term human-caused warming made the latter up to 10 times more likely, according to the Climate Shift Index from Climate Central.
"The tragic events in Texas are exactly what we would expect in our hotter, climate-changed, world," Bill McGuire, professor emeritus of geophysics and climate hazards at University College London, said Saturday. "There has been an explosion in extreme weather in recent years, including more devastating flash floods caused by slow-moving, wetter, storms, that dump exceptional amounts of rain over small areas across a short time."
It’s hard to make the Texas flood tragedy worse, except to know that on the same day Trump signed a bill to stop our efforts to defeat the climate change that is causing increased frequency of disastrous floods. And giving us more expensive electricity. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/05/c...
[image or embed]
— Governor Jay Inslee (@govjayinslee.bsky.social) July 5, 2025 at 9:29 AM
Instead of taking action to combat the planetary emergency, the Trump administration is ramping up fossil fuel production while waging war on clean energy and climate initiatives. The so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed into law by Trump on Friday slashes the tax credits for electric vehicles and other renewable technologies including wind and solar energy that were a cornerstone of the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act.
Keep ReadingShow Less
27 Arrested for Defying UK Ban on Nonviolent Pro-Palestine Group
"We oppose genocide—I didn't think that was that controversial—and we support the people who resist genocide," said one arrested protester.
Jul 06, 2025
Metropolitan Police arrested at least 27 protesters who gathered in central London on Saturday to publicly support Palestine Action, a nonviolent direct action group now officially designated a terrorist organization by the U.K. government.
According to Middle East Eye, Palestine defenders including 83-year-old Rev. Sue Parfitt, a former government attorney, an emeritus professor, and health workers gathered by a statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Parliament Square, where they held signs reading, "I OPPOSE GENOCIDE, I SUPPORT PALESTINE ACTION."
Members of the group Defend Our Juries informed Metropolitan Police of their plan prior to the demonstration.
"If we cannot speak freely about the genocide that is occurring... democracy and human rights in this country are dead."
"We would like to alert you to the fact we may be committing offenses under the Terrorism Act tomorrow, Saturday 5 July, in Parliament Square at about 1pm," the group said in an open letter to Met Commissioner Mark Rowley.
"If we cannot speak freely about the genocide that is occurring, if we cannot condemn those who are complicit in it and express support for those who resist it, then the right to freedom of expression has no meaning, and democracy and human rights in this country are dead," the letter argues.
Parfitt told Novara Media that members of Defend Our Juries were "testing the law."
"I know that we are in the right place doing the right thing," she said. "...We cannot be bystanders."
"We are losing our civil liberties, we must stop that for everybody's sake," Parfitt said in a separate interview with The Guardian.
Prior to his arrest, Defend Our Juries member Tim Crosland, the former government lawyer, told The Guardian that "what we're doing here as a group of priests, teachers, health workers, human rights lawyers [is] we're refusing to be silenced."
"Because it goes to the core of what we believe in: that we oppose genocide—I didn't think that was that controversial—and we support the people who resist genocide," he added. "In theory we are now terrorist supporters and can go to prison for 14 years, which is kind of crazy. I think what we are here to do is just expose the craziness of that."
Crosland said as he was being arrested, "This is what happens in modern day Britain for opposing genocide, it's quite something isn't it?"
A bystander told Novara Media: "I just feel disgusted by this government. I voted for them and they're now arresting people who are calling for a genocide to end. And this is a Labour government, they're meant to have left-wing roots."
Members of the group Defend Our Juries publicly declare their opposition to Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza and their support for the proscribed group Palestine Action while Metropolitan Police officers look on before arresting them during a July 4, 2025 demonstration in London. (Photo: Kristian Buus/In Pictures via Getty Images)
In a statement, Defend Our Juries sarcastically said that "we commend the counter-terrorism police for their decisive action in protecting the people of London from some cardboard signs opposing the genocide in Gaza and expressing support for those taking action to prevent it."
"It's a relief to know that counter-terrorism police have nothing better to do," the group quipped.
Last week, British lawmakers voted to ban Palestine Action as a terrorist group after some of its members vandalized two aircraft at a Royal Air Force base in Oxfordshire on June 20. The group—which was founded in 2020 and has also vandalized U.S. President Donald Trump's golf course in Turnberry, Scotland—is known for taking direction action against companies that supply weapons to Israel, which is accused of genocide in an ongoing International Court of Justice case concerning the war on Gaza.
On June 23, U.K. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced plans to proscribe the group under Section 3 of the Terrorism Act of 2000, introduced under former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair and widely criticized for its overbroad definition of terrorism. The House of Commons voted 385-26 Wednesday in favor of banning Palestine Action and the House of Lords approved the designation Thursday without a vote.
Palestine Action tried to delay the ban via legal action. However, the High Court on Friday denied the group's appeal for interim relief was denied on Friday, a decision that was upheld by the Court of Appeal.
The nonviolent group is now on the same legal footing in Britain as Al-Qaeda and Islamic State. Joining or supporting Palestine Action is now punishable by up to 14 years behind bars.
At midnight, Palestine Action will be proscribed under the Terrorism Act.Their real “crime”? Exposing the UK’s role in arming Israel’s genocide.This is a dark day for our democracy.Criminalising non-violent resistance won’t silence the truth.We are all Palestine Action 🇵🇸
[image or embed]
— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana.bsky.social) July 4, 2025 at 2:38 PM
Earlier this month, a group of United Nations experts urged the U.K. government to not ban Palestine Action.
"We are concerned at the unjustified labeling of a political protest movement as 'terrorist,'" the experts wrote. "According to international standards, acts of protest that damage property, but are not intended to kill or injure people, should not be treated as terrorism."
The U.N. experts warned that under the ban, "individuals could be prosecuted for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and opinion, assembly, association, and participation in political life."
"This would have a chilling effect on political protest and advocacy generally in relation to defending human rights in Palestine," they added.
Hundreds of jurists, artists and entertainers, and others have also decried the ban on Palestine Action.
"Palestine Action is intervening to stop a genocide. It is acting to save life. We deplore the government's decision to proscribe it," Artists for Palestine U.K.—whose members include Tilda Swinton, Paul Weller, Steve Coogan, and others—wrote in a statement last month.
"Labeling non-violent direct action as 'terrorism' is an abuse of language and an attack on democracy," the artists added. "The real threat to the life of the nation comes not from Palestine Action but from the home secretary's efforts to ban it. We call on the government to withdraw its proscription of Palestine Action and to stop arming Israel."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular