Trafficking in Persons Report 2012 Colombia

Officials noted that the lack of legal guidelines for the care and protection of victims remained a significant challenge. A victim protection decree to formally assign responsibility for victim services and to allocate funding was required by Law and was first drafted in ; however, it remained pending during the year. Officials and members of civil society noted that without this decree, there is no set budget for victim services, and instructions for victim identification and assistance were lacking.

Some local officials noted that in the absence of this decree, they could not claim competency on the issue or include it in their budget.

The government reported identifying 21 trafficking victims in ; all but one victim was subjected to sex trafficking, and one victim was a child. In comparison, in , authorities reported identifying 76 transnational trafficking victims and 15 victims of internal trafficking. The majority of victims identified by authorities were adults exploited in transnational sex trafficking.

A study published during the year by an international organization with anti-trafficking expertise suggested that this form of trafficking is greatly under-reported and under-identified by officials. The Colombian Child Welfare Institute ICBF reported cases of child prostitution in , and it is likely that many of these cases involved trafficking victims. Colombian consular officials reported assisting nine Colombian victims trafficked overseas during the reporting period: In comparison, Colombian consular officers abroad assisted trafficking victims in However, a study published during the year noted that in 70 percent of the cases of transnational trafficking registered by authorities between and , there was no information regarding the form of trafficking, calling into question the accuracy of this data.

One NGO in Medellin noted that the majority of the victims they assisted were internally displaced, and authorities reported rescuing children from armed groups in The majority of specialized victim services in Colombia were funded by international organizations and NGOs. Ten victims received services through NGOs funded by this mechanism. Authorities reported following a national trafficking victim assistance plan to refer all 21 identified victims to services. Officials reported that this system worked well and noted that significant funding for victim services remained at the end of the year.

However, NGOs receiving these funds asserted that the referral process did not work well in practice, and that funding was insufficient and inefficiently distributed. During the year, one NGO opened the first shelter in Colombia dedicated to assisting trafficking victims, but the shelter closed due to lack of funding.

Country Narratives: Countries N Through Z

The ICBF operated 34 centers that offered comprehensive services for child victims of sexual violence, although it did not maintain statistics on how many child trafficking victims received services at these centers during the year. The government maintained a reintegration program for child soldiers found in the ranks of armed groups and during the year children participated in the program.

Authorities reported providing medical and psychological care, access to financial and employment assistance, and information and legal support for judicial processes; however, NGOs stated that this assistance was cursory and inadequate. An international organization noted that reintegration services and assistance beyond short-term emergency care were minimal. Services for male victims were very limited. The government encouraged victims to assist in trafficking investigations and prosecutions.

Prosecutors reported that six victims collaborated with law enforcement officials to identify traffickers in However, most victims were reluctant to testify against their traffickers due to fear of reprisals or lack of awareness of their status as victims of a serious crime.

An NGO reported that the judicial process re-victimized the victims. While there is a limited program to provide protections to victims of crimes who testify, no trafficking victims participated during the year. Officials reported that five victims received monetary compensations of an undisclosed amount. There were no reports of victims being jailed or otherwise penalized for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked.

There was no specialized legal mechanism whereby the government offered a visa or temporary residence status to foreign trafficking victims. Authorities reported that they could provide foreign trafficking victims with temporary permission to remain in the country during the investigative process on a case-by-case basis; however, authorities did not report identifying or assisting any foreign trafficking victims in The government maintained prevention efforts against human trafficking in partnership with civil society organizations.

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The interagency anti-trafficking committee continued to coordinate efforts and to implement the national strategy to combat trafficking, and reported meeting frequently during the reporting period, although civil society actors noted that high turnover impacted its efficacy.

In partnership with an international organization, all 32 departments maintained anti-trafficking committees, although they maintained varying degrees of activity and civil society actors noted that some existed in name only. In June , authorities re-launched the human trafficking hotline: Between June and December , the line received 8, calls. Authorities conducted a wide range of awareness-raising activities in partnership with international organizations, including a national information campaign on trafficking.

Authorities continued to partially fund awareness workshops by an international organization that trained over 3, beauty salon employees during the year. Child sex tourism is not a specific crime under Colombian law; while the ICBF reported 49 cases of child sex tourism in and law enforcement investigated several child sex tourists during the year, there were no reported prosecutions or convictions of child sex tourists in Colombia.

There were no reported efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex from adults or any efforts to reduce the demand for forced labor. Colombian men and women are exploited in forced labor — including in domestic service — in Latin America and to a more limited extent, North Africa.

During the year, Colombian men were identified in forced labor in Argentina in furniture and basket production and peddling. To a more limited extent, children from neighboring countries are subjected to sex and labor trafficking in Colombia. Colombia is a destination for foreign child sex tourists primarily from North America, Europe, and other Latin American countries. The Government of Colombia does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. Authorities continued to undertake awareness campaigns and investigate and prosecute transnational trafficking cases.

Authorities increased the number of labor trafficking investigations and reported six convictions related to child recruitment by illegal armed groups in , some of which may have involved forcible child recruitment.

The government offered victims of transnational trafficking repatriation and short-term emergency assistance and provided services to child victims of sex trafficking and of forcible recruitment by illegal armed groups. The government did not demonstrate concrete progress in identifying victims from vulnerable populations, providing specialized services to victims, and prosecuting and convicting perpetrators of internal trafficking. Authorities did not treat all internal sex trafficking cases and recruitment of children by illegal armed groups as human trafficking, which hindered efforts to accurately assess government efforts to identify and assist victims and to investigate and prosecute trafficking cases.

Departmental governments lacked sufficient funding, staff, or interagency coordination to provide adequate specialized services to victims of trafficking. The government's victim assistance decree, required by the trafficking law and initially drafted in , remained pending. The Government of Colombia continued to prosecute transnational sex trafficking cases, but carried out limited law enforcement efforts against internal trafficking. Law prohibits all forms of trafficking and prescribes punishments of 13 to 23 years' imprisonment plus fines, penalties that are sufficiently stringent and commensurate with those prescribed for other serious crimes, such as rape.

Internal child sex trafficking cases were usually investigated as induction into prostitution and pimping, and some of these crimes carried lower penalties than trafficking. The Prosecutor General's Office maintained open investigations for transnational trafficking, including 21 for labor trafficking. The total number of internal trafficking investigations and prosecutions initiated by the Colombian government in was unknown, as internal trafficking cases were sometimes investigated as other crimes. The government initiated 44 prosecutions for transnational trafficking, an increase from 18 known prosecutions in The government convicted 11 transnational sex traffickers and one internal sex trafficker in , a small increase from Sentences ranged from eight to 10 years' imprisonment, with at least two convicted traffickers serving their sentences under house arrest and paying fines.

The Prosecutor General's Office initiated 1, new investigations related to child recruitment by illegal armed groups; these cases involved male victims and female victims. Colombian courts issued six sentences for illegal recruitment of children by armed groups in ; the range of sentences was unknown, and it was unclear how many of these cases involved forcible recruitment or forcible use of children. It was unclear how many sentences were issued for forcible child recruitment in In March , the Constitutional Court issued a directive ordering the government to increase law enforcement efforts against domestic servitude, but authorities did not report any investigations or prosecutions for that form of labor trafficking or any convictions for other forms of labor trafficking other than child recruitment by illegal armed groups.

The Colombian National Police conducted two joint anti-trafficking law enforcement operations with a foreign government in which 11 arrests were made, and one cooperative transnational trafficking investigation, resulting in four arrests, two of which led to convictions. While Colombian law penalizes all forms of trafficking, governmental structures and law enforcement practices did not reflect this comprehensive approach.

Data collection remained strong on law enforcement efforts against transnational trafficking but was uneven on efforts against internal sex trafficking and forced labor. As in previous years, one prosecutor handled all transnational trafficking cases for the entire country and faced a significant caseload.

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The government assigned only one prosecutor in Bogota to oversee cases of internal trafficking in the city, with no reduction in prior workload. Outside of Bogota, local prosecutors handled internal trafficking cases as well as prosecutions for other crimes. Many of these prosecutors were overburdened, underfunded, and lacked trafficking expertise.



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Law enforcement officers reported that social workers and other officials interacting with potential trafficking victims, such as children in commercial sexual exploitation, did not always refer these cases for criminal investigation. In some cases, this was because officials inaccurately believed that it was permissible under Colombian law for a child between 14 and 18 to engage independently in commercial sex; any minor engaging in prostitution for the benefit of a third-party, including a family member, is a trafficking victim. Colombian authorities did not consider forced child recruitment by illegal armed groups to be human trafficking, but rather a war crime.

Children forced to engage in criminal activity by organized criminal groups, as well as former child soldiers who did not leave illegal armed groups before turning 18, were not explicitly included in the trafficking definition in the law, and authorities did not investigate these cases as human trafficking. In , hundreds of officials — including prosecutors, judicial officials, police, and labor inspectors — received some training on human trafficking, often through partnerships with international organizations.

Diplomacy in Action

Authorities investigated a city councilman and municipal employee in the department of Antioquia for possible involvement in commercial sexual exploitation of minors; these officials continued to work while the investigation proceeded. The government did not report any prosecutions or convictions of government employees complicit in human trafficking. The Government of Colombia provided services to some trafficking victims, but long-term victim care was lacking and the government funded limited specialized services beyond emergency care.

Some government officials, including Colombian consular officers abroad and immigration officials, reportedly used established protocols to identify trafficking victims. The government did not provide evidence of effectively employing formal procedures to identify trafficking victims among vulnerable populations within the country, such as displaced persons, child laborers, or people in prostitution.

Civil society organizations were critical of the government's ability to identify and assist trafficking victims within the country, in part due to frequent turnover in staff responsible for coordinating victim services. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs identified 60 Colombian trafficking victims abroad through its embassies and an international organization, compared to 38 victims identified the year before. Of these, 34 were exploited in sex trafficking, 23 in forced labor, and three cases were considered to be trafficking by the Colombian government in which women were in servile marriages and subjected to domestic servitude.

Fourteen were male victims of labor trafficking and five were child victims of sex trafficking. Fifty-five of these 60 victims were repatriated in partnership with an international organization. The Colombian Child Welfare Institute ICBF , a government institution, reported identifying children in prostitution and nine children in forced labor; the government did not identify these children as trafficking victims.

Authorities and an international organization identified children who separated from illegal armed groups in Of this population, were girls and were boys, including indigenous children and 33 Afro-Colombian children.