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[7 January 2007] - According to Colombia’s controversial new Child and Adolescent Code approved by President Álvaro Uribe on 8th November, youths age 14 to 18 will be punished for crimes against the penal code with up to eight years in jail if convicted for murder, kidnapping and extortion. Youths age 16 to 18 will also be jailed for up to five years if they are convicted of offenses that carry over 6 years reclusion under the Penal Code currently in effect. Human rights organisations are denouncing this new piece of legislation as too repressive, as it criminalises and penalises those children who are coerced into working in armed groups or in the drug trade instead of helping them. For Iván Ramírez, COAV project coordinator of the Paz e Democracia organisation, the new law results from the government’s public security approach divorcing the issue of children involved in organised armed violence from social policy. “The new child law looks more advanced than its predecessor because it focuses on rights, however, it lowers the age for prosecution, a step taken backwards in terms of child rights, since one cannot compensate the lack of efficiency on the part of the government and the State by punishing those who are under age,” said Ramírez. The new Code was approved by Congress after five years of discussion and six different bills, but has not yet come into effect pending demands of the Constitutional Court. Going against the trend in international law The Coalition Against Treating Children as Members of the Armed Conflict in Colombia (Coalico) has issued a statement expressing concern that the new law has not made explicit reference to exonerating children associated to the armed conflict from youth penal responsibilities. The organisation sees this as a cause of concern especially because, according to international norms, children are considered victims of forced recruitment. The only disposition to allude to the issue of child involvement in the armed conflict is article 175 that states that children can be subject to the principle of opportunity – a process by which the Prosecutor may chose to drop criminal proceedings. The application of the principle of opportunity, however, is not compulsory, being left to the discretion of the Prosecutor in charge. The new Code does not abide by one of the major international human rights treaties for children - one that is most relevant to the Colombian conflict - the ILO Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour. According to the agreement, child participation at any of the stages of production of illegal drugs is deemed one of the worst forms of child labour. Despite the agreement, Colombia’s new law sentences children charged with drug trade offences to prison. “There is a manifest ignorance of the harsh realities that children in Colombia are faced with: their physical and economic exploitation as ‘raspachines’ of coca leaves” reads an excerpt of the Coalico statement. The coalition also notes that while the Legislative and Executive branches issued a framework law that punishes those associated with armed groups - charged with or sentenced for crimes against humanity - with 5 to 8 years in jail, it has also approved sentences of equal length in prison for teens who have committed much smaller offences. “They attack youth crime with criminal sanctions, disregarding its social, economic, political and cultural causes,” said Ramírez. Further information
pdf: http://www.comunidadesegura.org/?q=en/node/31337