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Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre - IDMC

http://www.idpvoices.org/80257297004E5CC5/(httpPages)/FD46E8ADA7630699C12572F60051A041?OpenDocument

 

COLOMBIA - FORCED DISAPPEARANCE & FORCED DISPLACEMENT - GENDER

 


Enforced disappearance constitutes a crime and, in certain circumstances predefined in international law, it can amount to a crime against humanity.(1) It occurs when people are arrested, detained or abducted by agents related to authorities, followed by a refusal to disclose the fate or whereabouts of the people concerned, which places them outside the protection of the law.(2)

According to an international verification mission, between July 2002 and June 2007, 235 cases of enforced disappearances and 955 extrajudicial executions, in many instances of human rights defenders were attributed to the National Army.(3) Other sources reported that between July 2002 and June 2006, at least 1,613 people had been forcibly disappeared in Colombia - an average of one person every day.(4) Yet, these figures are probably much higher because many families do not denounce the facts fearing reprisals or because many judicial investigations register these cases as kidnapping. Nearly always where the party responsible is known, the disappearances have been perpetrated by state agents, through their direct perpetration or by omission, tolerance or support for the paramilitary groups.(5)

Protection of IDPs against enforced disappearance is referred to in Guiding Principle 10.1(d) and their right to know the whereabouts of missing relatives in Guiding Principles 16.1 and 16.2.


Guiding principle 10


Threats and incitement to commit any of the foregoing acts shall be prohibited.


Guiding principle 16


UDHR Article 3
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

UDHR Article 9
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Read more - CLICK TO HEAR THE STORY OF LEYDI OF COLOMBIA, IN HER OWN WORDS - SHE WAS FORCEFULLY DISPLACED, AND HER HUSBAND WAS A VICTIM OF FORCED DISAPPEARANCE.

(1) Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Article 7.1(i)
(2) General comment on the definition of enforced disappearance, the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances available at http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/disappear/docs/disappearance_gc.doc
(3) Informe Preliminar de la Mision Internacional de Observacion sobre Ejecuciones Extrajudiciales en Colombia, p. 1, accessed 28 March 2008, available at http://www.dhcolombia.info/IMG/pdf_InformeA10.pdf
(4) Colombian Commission of Jurists, Colombia 2002-2006: Situation of human rights and humanitarian law, CCJ, p.3.
(5) Colombian Commission of Jurists, Colombia 2002-2006: Situation of human rights and humanitarian law, CCJ, p.3.

 





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