Displaced Communities - Learning to Exercise Their Rights
Bucaramanga is a city of two million people in the northeast of Colombia. Over the course of the conflict, tens of thousands of uprooted families have arrived here seeking safety. The majority are women and children, forced to flee the violence in the surrounding countryside, where the guerrilla, the paramilitaries and the army are fighting for control. They live hand to mouth in shacks on abandoned land, with little sanitation or water, and are often refused health care or education for their children.
Four years ago, most displaced Colombians were unaware that under national and international law, the government is obliged to provide them with food, shelter and education. Since then, Inter Pares has supported local Colombian organizations, Compromiso and the Luis Carlos Pérez Lawyers' Collective, to assist displaced women and men in forming associations to represent themselves and negotiate with state institutions. By forming these associations, displaced people now know their rights, and understand the complex system of local and regional government that, under Colombian law, should be responding to their needs.
Associations of displaced people have realized that laws only become reality when citizens join together to pressure authorities to comply with their obligations. "We have learned a lot," said Agostino, a leader of one association. "Now we know our rights and we work together. Before we only asked for short-term assistance like food. Now we are pressuring the government for longer-term solutions, like housing, employment opportunities and education for our children."
In the municipality of Floridabanca, three associations successfully lobbied the municipality with Compromiso's assistance to provide land, infrastructure, and housing for more than three hundred families. In Café Madrid, over 100 families have been living in cramped, squalid conditions in old coffee warehouses on the outskirts of the city for over six years. Last year they successfully negotiated with the municipal government to build decent housing for their families.
Inter Pares' support for the local organization, Women and the Future Foundation, has enabled displaced women to receive training, and thereby gain the confidence to build new organizations that respond to women's particular needs such as reproductive health, income generation, and literacy. In three shantytown neighbourhoods, displaced women created the Community Network against Violence towards Women, which educates people on the issue of family violence and provides counselling for women. With the assistance of the Foundation, women organized a city-wide network to bring their concerns to the attention of municipal governments and to present proposals for programs that respond to the needs of women and their families.
Through such organizing, displaced people have focused national attention on the inhumane conditions that hundreds of thousands have been forced to endure due to government neglect. In 2004, in response to presentations from displaced people and from organizations like the Lawyers' Collective, the Colombian Constitutional Court ruled that state treatment of displaced people was unconstitutional, and ordered the government to develop a national plan to address their needs. Local associations of displaced people in Bucaramanga have become affiliated with national organizations. With support from Inter Pares and our long-time counterpart Project Counselling Service, they are using the opportunities created by the national plan to ensure the creation and implementation of programs that benefit the displaced population.
Inter Pares' work in Colombia with displaced people will remain a priority. "It is slow work," said Agostino, "but we must continue. This is our country and we want things to be different for our children."
What they say:
Fewer people are being displaced now so things must be getting better.
What we see:
Since 1985, more than 3.7 million people have been displaced from their homes; they continue to live in miserable conditions, while the government refuses to provide access to housing, education, health care or employment. During the first six months of 2006, over 112,000 people joined the displaced population due to ongoing violence of paramilitary, guerrilla and army forces. Ongoing displacement by "demobilized" paramilitaries is no longer counted in official government figures.
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