By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Jun 2 2006 (IPS)

The Colombian government was able to soften an International Labour Organisation (ILO) sanction proposed to address the country’s continued situation of impunity regarding the murder of dozens of trade unionists and workers, but it bore the full brunt of another multilateral body’s harsh criticism of the toll that the country’s armed conflict is taking on children.

On Friday, Colombian authorities, union members and representatives of the business community worked out an agreement with the ILO, stipulating that the organisation would renew its presence in the country via a “permanent presence.”

The term “permanent presence” is a conscious choice, over the stronger (and more stigmatised) “office,” used to refer to ILO missions in countries under close scrutiny for serious violations.

Last March, the governing body of the ILO urged the international body, which gathered Wednesday in Geneva for its annual three-week conference, to seriously consider setting up an office in Colombia – something the country’s labour representatives have been requesting for years.

Colombia’s Deputy Minister of Labour Relations Jorge León Sánchez admitted that for 21 years the ILO has been “asking us to step up to the plate and deal with extreme issues of violence and labour conflict.”

Sánchez said the “Tripartite Agreement for Freedom of Association and Democracy,” signed Thursday and announced today, “is an historic document.”

The agreement calls for the permanent ILO presence to promote and defend the fundamental rights of workers, trade-union leaders and their organisations – particularly in issues related to protecting lives, the right to unionise, freedom of association and expression, collective bargaining, and free enterprise for employers.

Cleopatra Doumbia-Henry, director of the ILO’s International Labour Standards Department, noted that a tripartite ILO mission that visited Colombia last October had recommended the government make a concerted effort to solve the problem of impunity.

Impunity is a serious issue in Colombia, not only for the scores of union members and workers who have been killed, and undoubtedly contributes to the general crisis of widespread violence, she noted.

Sánchez predicted that the agreement would help reduce crime and violence against trade unionists.

According to the Colombian government, murders of labour activists were down considerably last year, to 40, compared to 196 in 2002.

The Colombian official acknowledged that the request for permanent representation could be interpreted as censure, but urged people to view the agreement as a proactive society-building measure, pointing out that true ILO sanctions had other names and repercussions.

The deputy minister reiterated that the agreement did not refer “specifically to an office” – which implies sanctions – but rather to a permanent ILO presence.

A Colombian Commission of Jurists delegation closely followed the negotiations of the Colombian Tripartite Agreement, which was subsequently ratified in Geneva. A member of this commission, lawyer Lina Malagón, told IPS she would comment on the agreement’s significance after making some inquiries, but failed to return calls later.

The agreement was signed by Deputy Minister Sánchez, union leaders Carlos Rodríguez, Julio Roberto Gómez and Apecides Alvis, and the business-management delegate, Luis Carlos Villegas.

The violence in Colombia was also closely examined by the Committee on the Rights of the Child, a United Nations organisation responsible for overseeing observance of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which went into effect in 1990.

The Committee, which ended its 42nd period of sessions Friday, expressed grave concerns about major long-term effects on children touched by the extrajudicial executions, murders and massacres unleashed by Colombia’s four-decade armed conflict.

Children continue to fall victims to forced disappearance and “social cleansing”, particularly those who suffer the stigma of internal displacement, said the Committee in its recommendations to the government of right-wing President Alvaro Uribe.

The organisation’s rapporteur for the Colombia reports, Jean Zermatten, noted that forced displacement affects 1.7 million people, half of whom are children.

The Committee also declared its alarm at the recent murders of hundreds of children in Ciudad Bolívar and Soacha, poor neighbourhoods on the outskirts of Bogotá, the country’s capital. It also noted that ties between public officials and members of illegal armed groups, particularly right-wing paramilitaries, have not yet been severed.

The Committee, which comprises 18 independent experts, made its concerns known to the government in the hopes it would finally address a situation in which children continue to be victims of torture, cruelty and degrading treatment. Although renegade groups are responsible for most of these abuses, state officials – including military personnel – have also been involved.

In addition, the report mentions the growing number of girls subjected to sexual violence, according to several reports of abuses committed by military forces.

Another reason for the Committee’s concern is the growing gap between social classes, and the increasing number of children living in poverty and extreme poverty.

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