COLOMBIA: Young people displaced by conflict demand their rights in the Constitutional Court

For the first time in Colombia’s history, 30 internally displaced children and young people came from all corners of the country last week to make their voices heard at the Constitutional Court.

With the aim of assessing how well the State is dealing with the problem of internal displacement, three of the Court’s magistrates and a number of high-ranking State officials and representatives of other organisations listened to what the young people had to say. However, the occasion was missed by the Ministers of Education and of Housing and the Environment, who just sent representatives.

The young people began by explaining their reasons for coming to the High Court to demand that their rights be protected:

“I am originally from Putumayo, but I coming today from Tumaco”; “I am originally from Macayepo, but I am coming from Sincelejo”; “I am from Chocó, but I am coming from Córdoba”, this was how the stories of all the young people began…

Young people coming from the district of Nelson Mandela, Cartagena, dreamed of proper food. They said when it rained, the water came into their houses, that the streets were such a mess that they couldn’t walk around.

They don’t attend to us because we have no money. We are seen as charity cases”, said one girl.

“Young people who have been displaced are stigmatised. Everyone always thinks that they support the armed groups. The paramilitaries don’t let them go around in groups, nor do they allow free movement. They say: “good children go to bed early, we put the bad ones to bed.”

“One time they gave us some refried beans that were so old that they didn’t soften in two days”, said another boy in telling how, in his community, children have died from lack of food.

And what about education? asked one girl… “The education is dire, we don’t have access to advanced technology and we don’t all have 2000 pesos which is what it costs to do our work on a computer.”

“Our parents should have jobs! If they don’t, it is up to the children to go out and work”, exclaimed another young participant.

There are barriers to accessing basic services: health cards, school uniforms, etc. There is also a shortage of sexual and reproductive health programmes, proper housing, but the threats of forced recruitment by illegal armed groups keep coming.

Displaced and invisible

Gabriela Bucher, Director of Plan International, Colombia, which promoted the hearing in the Constitutional Court, pointed out that children and young people who have been internally displaced are invisible to the media, the public and the State. “There are no disaggregated statistics which help us to understand the extent of the problem and follow it up.”

According to the report of the Agencia Pandi Periodismo Amigo de los Derechos de la Niñez, which monitored child rights in a number of newspapers in 2005, only five per cent of news dealt with children and of these only 0.6 per cent referred to internally displaced children, said Bucher.

Bucher added that, in spite of the connotations of humanitarian tragedy that displacement evoked, and the fact that this situation is different for adults and for children, there are no public policies that differentiate by age, gender, ethnicity or disability.

“Growing up in situations of despotism, fear, hostility, rejection, anger and hunger generates incertainty and mistrust. Many displaced children have negative feelings”, she said.

Fernando Gómez, the Jesuit Refugee Service and the Coalition against the involvement of children and young people in armed conflict, made clear that three years after the Constitutional Court had declared the situation of internally displaced people unconstitutional, nothing had improved.

On the contrary, there is information about new incidents of displacement. He said that there is a lost generation. “There are children and adults, but there are no young people. When a child turns nine, families start finding somewhere to send them to protect them from forced recruitment. This is common, for example, in the south of the province of Bolívar and in Barrancabermeja.

State officials talk

Attending the hearing were the Director of the Colombian Institute for Family Welfare (ICBF), Directors of the Social Action Programmes, and Families in Action and representatives of the Ministers of Education and Housing and the Environment. Each one spoke about their respective programmes for the displaced population.
However, the magistrate Manuel José Cepeda heard few answers when asking if they had established specific programmes for the internally displaced population, especially for children and young people, which allowed them to identify and provide for their pressing and particular needs.

Elvira Forero, Director of ICBF, said “It does not make sense to separate displaced children from other children.” She reported that in vulnerable areas mobile units were sent and community homes established.

The representative of the Ministry of Housing and the Environment highlighted that the responsibility for solving the housing problems of the displaced population was in the hands of local bodies and that these presented a number of difficulties, among others, because of the lack of social interest in this population.

Faced with this, Cepeda asked for an explanation of what the Ministry of Housing and the Environment in cases where they had detected that local bodies were not doing what they were supposed to do. The answer was weak, like the situation: “It is complicated if we don’t have the collaboration of local bodies both in the development of housing plans and in finance.”

Following the answers given by public officials, the representatives of the organisations present, called attention to the fact that victims of the conflict required special protection.
María Cristina Hurtado, representative of the Ombudsman’s office for Children and Women, pointed out that the State aims to re-establish rights, which at the same time it is not guaranteeing.

The Ombudsman’s representative warned that displaced children found themselves in a vicious cycle as the danger of recruitment into armed groups forced them to stay on the move. She highlighted that 25 per cent of children lived like this. However, she continued, the phenomenon is little recorded and reported for fear of reprisals.
She said that the ICBF, whilst complying with its general responsibilities, must offer specialised intervention for younger children, which it does not currently do.

The strongest criticisms were made by Marco Romero, from the Follow-up Commission, who said that only 36 per cent of the displaced population is receiving medical attention, while only four per cent of families are receiving housing subsidies.

He called attention to the responsibilities of every governmental organisation, starting with cooperation among themselves. “We should not say that the national government should do a lot, and local governments do little. On the issue of housing, it is important to talk of the responsibility that local governments have, but what should be the indicators be for displaced families to receive a full subsidy to have proper housing or a school coupon?”

Figures on the situation of Colombia’s displaced population:

• The most recent report of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), published on World Refugee Day, revealed that in Colombia there are three million displaced people, one million more than the number which is used officially, that is to say, some 700 thousand families.
• 10 per cent of displaced households have children between five and 11 years-old, and at least one works. Forty-four per cent of households have children who are not in the education system. According to a Vulnerability Study of the Conferencia Episcopal (2006).
• 63% of displaced households live in inadequate housing. 48 per cent do not have access to sufficient services. Sixty-one per cent live in overcrowded accommodation. The households surveyed said they had infestations of flies, mosquitoes, mice, cockroaches and bad odours. Report on the food risks in the displaced population (2003).
• Afro-Colombians represent eight per cent of the Colombian population and 11 per cent of the displaced population. Indigenous people represent two per cent of the country’s total population and eight per cent of the displaced population. UNHCR (2004).
• In Colombia, there is a 47.2 per cent rate of violence within families, while among the displaced population the rate is at 62 per cent. National Health Survey.
• The Constitutional Court, in its report T25 of 2004, said that the state of forced displacement in the country was unconstitutional and said that children were one of the population groups which was most severely affected.

Further information

• A hearing on the situation of children and armed conflict in Colombia will be held at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on 18 July 2007. Read more here.
• CRIN's page on Colombia