WUNRN
Internal Displacement Monitoring
Centre - IDMC
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.
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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