Equality and Non-discrimination

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The Constitutional Court of Colombia (“the Court”) used its judicial review powers to assess the situation of displaced persons in Colombia. Around 1,150 family groups filed tutela or protection claims with their respective municipalities regarding the state’s duty to protect them due to their status as displaced persons. They requested aid, but the state denied aid or gave it for an incomplete amount of time, citing budgetary constraints. 

The Court surveyed the constitutional and international legal frameworks that protect women HRDs as subjects of special protection derived from the vulnerability linked to their situation of displacement. Among other international and regional instruments protecting the rights to defend human rights, the Court discussed the Declaration of the Rights of Human Rights Defenders (1999) and Organization of American States (OAS) Resolution 1671 (1999).

This case resolves an auto action to protect the rights of the displaced Afro-Colombian population in conformance with the court’s prior declaration in the T-025 decision of 2004 of an “unconstitutional state of affairs” around the situation of the forcibly displaced population.

The Court first surveyed the domestic and international jurisprudence and legal frameworks guaranteeing the rights of persons with disabilities. The Court noted various articles under Colombia’s Constitution that protect the rights of persons with disabilities.

In this Auto, the Court was gravely concerned with the threat that internal displacement posed to the existence of Indigenous Peoples in Colombia. The Court attributed this threat to three main factors: (1) rupture of structures and community disintegration; (2) culture shock outside of their ancestral lands; (3) getting caught in the middle of the violence. 

Under Colombian constitutional law, children must receive priority in care and safeguarding of their rights. Despite this, over fifty percent of the internally displaced population in Colombia is made up of children and adolescents below the age of 18. The Court in this case found that the governmental response has been largely inexistent and inefficient in resolving the myriad violations of childrens’ human rights.

The first two sections of this judgement served as an update on the status of sexual violence in the country since the 2008 Auto 092. The Court examined information on the ongoing sexual violence against women, including sexual slavery, and forced sex work being imposed on women, girls, adolescents and women with disabilities by armed actors, and surveyed the ongoing barriers to accessing justice and aid for displaced women. 

Luis Eduardo Guachalá Chimbo, aged 23 years old at the time of his disappearance, suffered from epileptic seizures since childhood. As of January 21, 2004, he was diagnosed with with a psychosocial disability. Due to insufficient income to cover Mr. Chimbo’s and his family’s basic needs, he was unable to consistently afford the medicines needed to treat his epileptic seizures.

Over the past two years, dozens of ESCR-Net members engaged in cross-network discussions to develop the analytical report “Building sustainable peace. Transforming conflict-affected situations for women.” The report argues that in dealing with conflict-affected situations, it is vital to adopt an intersectional feminist approach via a human rights framework, and provides seven lessons and principles to guide the work in the field.

The Legal Resources Centre (LRC) represented Mrs. Agnes Sithole, a seventy-two-year-old woman living in KwaZulu-Natal who married Gideon Sithole in 1972 out of community of property in terms of section 22(6) of the Black Administration Act 38 of 1927 (BAA) and the Commission for Gender Equality in a challenge to the Matrimonial Property Act of 1984. Between 1972 and 1985 Mrs. Sithole worked as a housewife and ran a home-based clothing business successfully to educate her children and assist the family household expenses. After the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Sithole deteriorated, Mr.