At certain times, the attacks by the Colombian government on the guerrilla and paramilitary groups have reaped short-term positive results, but experts emphasize that unless the political and economic powers behind the organizations are identified, they will never truly diminish. Imprisoned former leaders of the dissolved paramilitary group the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) say paramilitary organizations include high-level officials, politicians, members of the public security forces, business leaders, contractors, and foreign investors (Vieira, 2010).
TRAFFICKING WITHIN COLOMBIA
Internal trafficking and child labor are major issues in Colombia. Forced labor of boys and sex trafficking of young girls has historically been in large part a result of the strength of the paramilitary and guerrilla groups who use children to further their objectives. Forced marriage; involuntary domestic servitude; forced labor in sweatshops, grocery stores, and farms; forced begging; and forced street vending have also been reported (U.S. Department of Labor, 2004; UNODC, 2009a; U.S. Department of State, 2010a, 2010b).
Displaced persons are particularly susceptible to trafficking everywhere. There are discrepancies between the Colombian government’s estimate of IDPs and that of other monitors. For instance, in 2009 the government reported that slightly more than 120,000 persons were internally displaced, while a national monitor estimated the figure to be closer to 290,000 (IDMC, 2009). Regardless, the number of displaced persons continues to be strikingly high. While most of the displacement in 2009 resulted from small-scale events, 80 large-scale events resulted in the displacement of 19,000 people. Most of the displaced persons from the large-scale events were Afro-Colombian and indigenous persons in the departments of Antioquia, Chocó, Cauca, Nariño, and Valle del Cauca. About half of the larger displacements took place in Nariño, a department in the west that borders Ecuador and where numerous assassinations of indigenous people were reported in 2009 (IDMC, 2009).
Internally displaced persons are entitled to emergency state assistance, but they must register and be certified by the government. Women in rural areas are less likely to possess identification than men. Also, there is a negative stigma associated with registration. In 2004 it was estimated that 60 percent of IDPs were not registered and as a result did not receive aid (USOC, 2004). Under-registration of IDPs continues to exist not only because of lack of information, stigma, or fear, but also because of a high rate of application rejections. The latter issue is one that the government has begun to address (IDMC, 2009). Displacement also means that IDPs have a particularly difficult time obtaining economic and social benefits and are excluded from the formal labor market. In 2009, 89 percent of IDPs failed to earn the minimum salary of $260 per month and relied primarily on informal work (IDMC, 2009). The informal economy is not regulated, and workers are vulnerable to exploitation, including internal and international trafficking. The larger cities in Colombia, such as Bogotá, Cali, and Medellin, receive the most IDPs. The cities have tried to improve their response to receiving IDPs but face coordination and budget constraints. Displaced persons also flee to the nearby countries of Ecuador, Venezuela, and Panama (IDMC, 2009).
The Colombian government and other monitors report a range of estimates regarding the number of child soldiers used by guerrilla and military groups. The organization War Child International estimated that there were at least 14,000 child soldiers in Colombia in 2007, half of whom it believed were used by the FARC and the ELN. The children were commonly recruited in their neighborhood and at school. Other children were kidnapped from their school as they left at the end of the day. In 2009 the Colombian government estimated that guerrilla and paramilitary groups forcibly recruited thousands of children (U.S. Department of State, 2010a, 2010b). The previous year, the Ministry of Defense gave more specific estimates, stating that more than 4,600 FARC members and more than 1,300 ELN members were minors and that most guerrilla fighters had joined the guerrilla ranks as children. In 2009 the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Colombian Family Welfare Institute estimated that the number of children participating in illegal armed groups was between 10,000 and 13,000. These are the most recent estimates on the total of child soldiers in Colombia. Colombian authorities did report that they identified 483 cases of children recruited by armed groups in 2011. In the same year 835 children participated in the reintegration program for child soldiers found in the ranks of armed groups. In its effort to recruit children, the FARC issued letters to indigenous communities delineating a policy to conduct child recruitment. Recipients were warned not to challenge the policy (U.S. Department of State, 2010b, 2012). Carlos, 10 years old, recalled what it was like when these groups came to his town:
I was very young, around 6 years old, when the army, the guerrillas, and the paramilitaries came to our neighborhood. They were fighting in the mountains, and the boys who lived there came down to our neighborhood. One day my mother was ill and she said, “I am going to buy pills.” The guerrillas were outside the shop and said, “Come here, we will give you a pill.” It was not a pill, but a bullet. I was very frightened. These people were walking around and guarded the villages day and night. (War Child International, 2007)
Not all child soldiers are directly forced to work for the guerrilla and paramilitary groups. Other factors cited for joining are ideology, lack of socioeconomic options, a love of weapons, and desire for protection or revenge (War Child International, 2007). For some children it is an exchange of one harsh life for another. One child soldier, Estelle, was repeatedly raped by her stepfather from the age of 5 to 11 and beaten throughout her early childhood by her mother. At 11 years of age, Estelle was recruited by the FARC and became a child soldier in constant fear of being killed:
Whether it was the police, the army, or the paramilitaries: when they said “go to the front,” you had to go, and it was hard because we had to walk for days without sleep and hardly eating anything. I was saddest when I saw friends die. When I was thirteen I wanted to run away. In the group I experienced war, hunger, and cold and saw people die. One day I did run away. I was sent ahead as a scout and suddenly my courage left me. I sat down and all I could do was cry. When I heard music I looked out across the valley. Then, I stopped thinking and ran down a little road and kept running. (War Child International, 2007)
In addition to children used by guerrilla and paramilitary groups, child labor is used in the production of at least eight products in Colombia: clay bricks, coal, coca, coffee, emeralds, gold, pornography, and sugarcane. Coca production also involves forced labor of adults (U.S. Department of Labor, 2009). The exploitation of children through sex tourism is also a problem, particularly in the coastal cities of Cartagena and Barranquilla. Many of the child victims have been displaced from their rural homes because of the unrest. In 2004 it was estimated that 1,500 boys and girls were victims of sexual tourism in Cartagena, some as young as 9 years old (Arrington, 2004; U.S. Department of State, 2010a). The U.S. State Department’s 2010
Trafficking in Persons Report
states that although some men experience forced labor, forced prostitution of women and children remains a larger problem (U.S. Department of State, 2010a). This claim is questionable, particularly when the number of children who are forced child soldiers for the guerrilla and paramilitary groups is included in the calculation. It is more likely that the number of forced-labor and sex-trafficking victims is equal, or close to it. Regardless, investigations focus primarily on sex trafficking. For instance, out of 159 investigations in 2008 and 215 investigations in 2009, there were only 2 and 80 investigations of forced labor, respectively (U.S. Department of State, 2010a). Still, the increase from 2 to 80 is positive and noteworthy.
A particular challenge for the Colombian government in its struggle against its guerrilla and paramilitary groups is the lack of cooperation by neighboring Venezuelan and Ecuadoran authorities. Leaders of the FARC and the ELN have sought refuge in both nations. One such case is that of Luciano Marín Arango (a.k.a. Iván Márquez), a member of the FARC whom the Colombian government believes to be in Venezuela (El Universal, 2009). Colombia’s intelligence agency, the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad (DAS), believes that Luciano Marín Arango and other high-level rebels move back and forth between Colombia and Venezuela, specifically hiding in bordering municipalities of Machiques, Venezuela, which borders Cesar in Colombia, and in Nula, Venezuela, which borders Arauca in Colombia. The DAS states that 28 FARC camps exist in Machiques and Nula and have enough space to house up to 1,500 persons (Palmer, 2010; Pachico, 2010). Other FARC leaders are likely hiding in Venezuela’s Perijá; National Park. The DAS believes that Venezuelan military officials and civilians help the FARC guerrillas by providing them with arms and food (Palmer, 2010; Pachico, 2010).
Relations between the Colombian and Venezuelan governments are not optimal. In July 2010 Luis Alfonso Hoyos, Colombia’s ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), gave a presentation to the OAS that included a series of photographs, maps, coordinates, and videos that, according to the Colombian government, are proof of the presence of illegal armed groups in Venezuelan territory. In response, Venezuela’s OAS ambassador, Roy Chaderton, stated that Colombia’s evidence was not valid and disapproved of the use of the OAS as a platform for presenting it (OAS, 2010). In the case of Luciano Marín Arango, the Colombian government emphasizes its frustration with Venezuelan authorities. “One would like that, in accordance with international obligations related to judicial cooperation, Venezuela’s authorities would capture, take to court, and extradite or deport him [Luciano Marín Arango] to Colombia,” said Gabriel Silva, Colombia’s Defense Minister (El Universal, 2009).
The government of Colombia has also had tension with its neighbor Ecuador, specifically surrounding an event in 2008 when the Colombian army carried out a raid on a FARC camp in Ecuador. The army killed FARC leader Luis Edgar Devia Silva (a.k.a. Raúl Reyes) and retrieved his computers (Begg, 2010). The Ecuadoran government believed this act undermined its sovereignty and wanted the Colombian government to hand over Reyes’ files, which the Colombian government claimed contained evidence of collusion between the Ecuadoran government and the FARC. More recently the governments of Colombia and Ecuador have been trying to restore their relationship, but the files were a serious point of contention. Former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe refused to provide the files, but President Juan Manuel Santos handed them over on the day of his inauguration in August 2010 (Begg, 2010). Recently Ecuadoran and Colombian authorities have jointly investigated several trafficking cases (U.S. Department of State, 2010a). This development may indicate that relations between the two nations are on the mend.
Colombia is also a destination nation for human trafficking for forced labor (domestic servants, vendors, and beggars) and commercial sexual exploitation. The majority of victims identified by state authorities in Colombia between 2005 and August 2007 were from Honduras (19 persons) and Ecuador (4 persons) (UNODC, 2009a; U.S. Department of State, 2010a, 2010b). Another country of origin is Peru. An anonymous Interpol investigations officer revealed that in 2008 a trafficking ring holding 30 Peruvian nationals captive was dismantled. The laborers had been forced to work in the city of Bucaramanga (Martínez, 2009).
TRAFFICKING ABROAD
Colombia’s civil unrest has significantly contributed to its existence as a primary source nation of human trafficking for the Western Hemisphere. In 2005 it was estimated that many of the 45,000 to 50,000 Colombian nationals working abroad as prostitutes were trafficking victims (U.S. Department of State, 2006; HRI, 2006). Fortunately, this number appears to be on the decline. For instance, Colombians made up more than 35 percent of trafficking victims in Spain in 2000 and 2001. This number decreased to 10 percent by 2006. Between 2001 and 2007, nearly 12 percent of identified trafficking victims in Japan were from Colombia. While the number spiked to 43 victims in 2003, it dropped to zero in 2006 and 2007 (MOFA, 2008; UNODC, 2009b). Regardless, international trafficking of Colombians remains an issue. Persons from Colombia are trafficked to the Caribbean, Europe, Asia, North America, and other Latin American countries for forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation (UNODC, 2009a; U.S. Department of State, 2010a). One such case involves 30 Colombian women lured by false jobs and taken to a brothel in Ibarra, Ecuador. Fortunately, the women were discovered within several days (Martínez, 2009). In September 2009, 54 Colombian women were reportedly detained in a Trinidad and Tobago prison. According to Ilba Miriam Hoyos Castañeda, assistant attorney general for the rights of child, adolescent, and family, the women were victims of a Colombian-Venezuelan network that trafficked women to Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago. What is of particular concern is that in December 2009, 26 of the Colombian victims were reportedly still being held in a penitentiary in Trinidad and Tobago (Vanovac, 2009; El Colombiano, 2009). The articles regarding this case do not state explicitly that the women were trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation, nor is it clear whether the initial number was incorrect or whether 28 of the women had been previously released.
Colombians also face forced labor abroad. For instance, in 2009, 56 Colombian forced-labor victims were discovered on a Venezuelan shrimp farm (U.S. Department of State, 2010a). The Venezuelan government is investigating the case. In another case, a Colombian woman, María, accepted employment as a domestic worker in a U.S. city (for protection, the victim does not disclose the exact location). Upon arrival in the United States, María’s captors confiscated her passport, forced her to perform domestic duties daily from 5 a.m. to midnight, and gave her only vegetables to eat. As a result of the limited diet and the long hours of labor, María’s weight plummeted from 128 pounds to 90 pounds during the 39 days of forced labor. She was not allowed to contact her family, and in fact her captors blocked the phone to ensure that she had no means to contact anyone outside the home. With the help of a neighbor, María contacted the police. Unfortunately, the police did little more than force her captors to return Maria’s passport to her and reprimand them for mistreating her. Frightened by the police visit, María’s captors told her that if she did not sign a paper exonerating them from all responsibility, they would report her to the police and make false charges against her so that she would face years in jail. María managed to escape when her captors were sleeping. The neighbor drove her to a shelter for human trafficking victims (Martínez, 2009).