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The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights held its open pre-sessional Working Group meeting in Geneva on 25 May 2009, in planning its upcoming examinations of Kazakhstan, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Algeria, Mauritius and Gabon in 2009-10. The meeting was attended solely by a strong representation of NGOs working on the situation of human rights in Colombia. There was no visible presence of any State representatives at the meeting.
The Working Group received five presentations on Colombia from extremely well-prepared representatives, who provided detailed statistics (despite admissions of the difficulties in compiling accurate information) and referenced previous outstanding recommendations of the Committee. Issues raised included: the lack of a reduction in poverty, with 50% of the population still in poverty and 15% in extreme poverty; the 30% wage gap between men and women; restrictions on the right to strike in practice and violence against union leaders; the fact that Colombia is the only State in Latin America that does not provide free primary education; the deteriorating condition of the world’s second largest population of internally displaced persons; the invisibility of LGBT persons in State policy; and the development of an ‘agrarian counter reform’ with the effective legalisation of evictions, disappearance of small credit, denial of the right to food, and increased movement to urban areas.
Specific attention was also given to the Pacific Coast as the region
with the worst standard of living, where a military economic blockade
is in effect, high child mortality is often caused by the military and
official forces, and the rights of indigenous peoples are routinely
violated.
Among the questions raised by the Committee were: whether the national human rights institution played an effective role
in assisting in implementing international recommendations, whether
civil society was consulted in the national reporting process; and to what degree
the State was implementing ILO Convention No. 169. The Committee
concluded by expressing its sincere appreciation for the work of
Colombian NGOs, without which it recognised it could not carry out its
work.
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