Olivier De Schutter, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, warned that Colombia’s economic segregation is obstructing peace efforts following a 10-day visit to Colombia.
Despite progress in Colombia’s peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels, social and economic inequalities persist. Colombia divides households into six economic strata, a system intended to redistribute wealth through subsidies, but which has entrenched social segregation and poverty, preventing upward mobility for the poorest communities. While Colombia has seen slight reductions in extreme poverty, especially under President Gustavo Petro’s efforts to reduce poverty via economic reforms, 33 percent of the population lived in poverty last year.
This complicates Colombia’s transitional justice process, De Schutter emphasized, since (especially) children of low-income families are vulnerable to recruitment by armed groups due to a lack of social connections and opportunities.
For over five decades, the FARC waged an internal war against the Colombian government, a conflict which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. The Peace Accord, signed in 2016, transformed the FARC into a political party and initiated a series of transitional justice mechanisms, including the Special Jurisdiction for Peace.
However, the envoy stressed that without addressing deep-rooted economic inequalities, achieving sustainable peace remains elusive.
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