Human Rights in Colombia must be a priority for all political parties

On international human rights day genuine steps must be taken to combat attacks on human rights defenders in Colombia

In 2014 in both Colombia and the European Union important elections will take place. The dialogues in Havana between the government and the FARC are a step towards building peace in Colombia, but as we have said repeatedly, this is only one step and much needs to be done to achieve lasting peace. In Oidhaco we are concerned that in 2013 human rights violations have increased rather than decreased, as shown by the steady rise in killings of human rights defenders; by September, 52 men and women who struggled for human rights in Colombia had been killed. The Colombian Constitutional Court has stated that sexual violence is a crime perpetrated by all the armed actors and that it is ‘a habitual, extensive, systematic and invisible practice’. Colombia has the highest number of human rights violations in the western world.

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