Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean

COLOMBIA: Child Combatants, Victims and Victimisers

Helda Martínez

BOGOTA, Dec 13 2006 (IPS) - Thousands of children and teenagers are involved in Colombia’s armed conflict, after being drawn into insurgent and paramilitary groups by means of deception, tempted by promises of an income, or to escape poverty and the lack of opportunities for a better life.

“All of these factors put the responsibility for safeguarding and respecting the rights of children in the hands of the state, society and the family,” said Colombian Ombudsman Volmar Pérez during the release of a new report this week.

Although the local representative of the United Nations children’s fund (UNICEF), Paul Martin, said “There are no concrete data on the number of children involved in Colombia’s armed conflict,” the New York-based Human Rights Watch has estimated in earlier reports that the total could be as high as 11,000.

“The United Nations has recognised that both guerrillas and paramilitaries violate fundamental humanitarian standards by relying on children to fight,” José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director for Human Rights Watch, said last year. “These horrific practices are causing immeasurable damage to Colombia’s children, and to Colombian society as a whole.”

Pérez said “The illegal armed groups (involved in Colombia’s decades-long armed conflict) are mainly responsible for this crime, which violates human rights principles, international humanitarian law and international criminal law.”

He was speaking at the presentation of a study on the social reinsertion of children and adolescents previously involved in illegal armed groups, carried out with UNICEF financial support and advice.

The only verifiable statistic available is that 2,864 minors were registered from November 1999 to April 2006 in a programme providing specialised assistance to former underage combatants. The programme is run by the governmental Colombian Family Welfare Institute (ICBF).

The study is based on interviews with 329 children and adolescents enrolled in the programme, as well as information provided by ICBF officials.

Ninety percent of the interviewees were between the ages of 15 and 18, and 68 percent were boys. The youngsters came from all around the country.

“They deceive you with any old lie, promises of money, a gun or a car. You get excited and you go with them. And if you don’t have the love of your parents, they draw you in that way,” says one of the former underage combatants.

The study reports that 55 percent of the minors who were previously involved in the civil war belonged to the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), while nearly 32 percent belonged to the paramilitary United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) and Peasant Self-Defence Forces of Casanare (a province in eastern Colombia).

Out east, “all of the young people join the self-defence forces almost as a matter of routine, at the age of 16. Most of the kids are campesinos (peasants), but kids from the towns also join up. The ones who don’t go are the kids who have parents with money, because they send them to Tunja (the capital of the eastern province of Boyacá), or to Bogotá,” said another youngster.

One of the study’s aims was to urge the government to live up to the International Convention on the Rights of the Child and other international treaties signed by Colombia, which require signatories to eradicate the recruitment of child combatants.

Article 44 of the Colombian constitution also outlines the rights of children, as does more recent legislation, such as the justice and peace law passed in 2005 and the code on children and adolescents signed into law this year by rightwing President Álvaro Uribe.

Pérez noted that recruitment of minors by the paramilitary groups remained largely an invisible phenomenon.

Referring to the controversial paramilitary demobilisation negotiated by the government, he pointed out that none of the thousands of members of the self-defence forces who laid down their weapons in official public ceremonies were minors, despite the fact that the ICBF has documented a number of such cases.

The ombudsman also argued that the lowering of the age of majority from 18 to 15, under the new code on children, was unfair because it meant minors could now be tried for their actions in the armed conflict, even though most were forcibly recruited or drawn into the conflict due to the state’s failure to guarantee adequate living conditions or better prospects for their future.

He noted, meanwhile, that adult members of the paramilitary forces who laid down their arms were granted legal benefits such as reduced sentences and incentives for social reinsertion despite the crimes they had committed, which included the recruitment of children and adolescents.

The reduction in the age of majority was one of the most hotly debated aspects in Congress of the reform of the code on children.

In response to a specific consultation by the ombudsman’s office and other organisations, the Constitutional Court stated that former underage combatants “are considered victims of the armed conflict, but that does not totally exempt them from penal responsibility.”

Pérez said that what must be done is to “sensitise” judges and other officials dealing with minors previously involved in the armed conflict, in order for them to be treated in the fairest possible manner, within the framework of the law.

But the reality is complex. A social researcher who has taken part in legal hearings and who preferred not to be identified told IPS that “The kids come to court trembling with fear. But they deny everything. They are asked ‘Have you killed anyone?’ and they say ‘No’. And who can prove that they have? It’s very difficult.”