Casualties and Victim Assistance

Summary findings

·         Declining international funding for targeted victim assistance programs reduced access to physical rehabilitation, psychological support, and economic inclusion programs for mine/explosive remnants of war (ERW) survivors and other persons with disabilities

·         Coordination for victim assistance for mine/ERW survivors was mainly replaced by efforts to coordinate the implementation of the Law of Victims and Restitution of Land (Law 1448, referred to below as the Victim’s Law); this shift raised concerns that the specific needs of mine/ERW survivors might be lost within the much larger group of armed conflict victims with divergent needs, such as displaced persons

·         Improvements were made in the registration process for mine/ERW victims, increasing the number of mine/ERW victims who should be able to access assistance under the Victim’s Law

Victim assistance commitments

The Republic of Colombia is responsible for a significant number of landmine and ERW survivors who are in need. Cluster munition victims have also been reported. Colombia has made commitments to provide victim assistance through the Mine Ban Treaty and as a signatory to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Casualties[1]

Casualties Overview

In 2012, the Presidential Program for Comprehensive Action Against Antipersonnel Mines (Programa Presidencial para la Acción Integral contra Minas Antipersonal, PAICMA) recorded 496 casualties from antipersonnel mines and ERW.[2]

There were 279 military casualties in 2012.[3] Civilian casualties (217) made up 44% of the total, an increase compared to 37% in 2011 as well as to other recent years; civilians made up 34% of all casualties in 2010 and were 41% of all casualties in 2009 and 2008. Of civilian casualties, 30% (66) were children (45 boys; 21 girls). Continuing the trend of increasing child casualties observed in 2011, this was an increase of over 50% from the number of child casualties (44) in 2011, when they were 22% of civilian casualties. Child casualties in 2012 were more than double the number (28) of child casualties in 2010. There were 32 casualties among women, a 50% increase from the 22 women casualties in 2011. The remainder of the casualties, and the majority of recorded civilian casualties (65%), were men.

In 2012, there were 55 civilian casualties among manual coca eradicators employed by the Program for the Eradication of Illicit Cultivation (Programas contra Cultivos Ilícitos, PCI).[4] This was a significant increase compared with the 21 casualties among coca eradicators in 2011 but similar to the number (58) reported for 2010. This was despite the fact that PAICMA continued to work with the PCI, as required by the Attorney General’s Office, to ensure that safety standards, a security protocol, and preventive education were developed and implemented during manual coca eradication.[5] Annual variations in the number of casualties were explained by the variability in the armed conflict in Colombia, which makes violence and the use of mines difficult to predict; in 2012 there was an intensification of the conflict and a change in strategies used. In addition, the number of coca plants under cultivation increased so there was a corresponding increase in eradication efforts.[6] The number of casualties among security forces (police or military) occurring during coca eradication in 2012 was unknown.[7]

From 2006 through the end of 2012, there were at least 342 civilian casualties recorded among coca eradicators; 42 died, 297 were injured, and it was unknown whether the remaining three casualties survived.[8]

The overall mine/ERW casualty total in 2012 represents a slight decrease (10%) in annual casualties as compared with the 549 casualties recorded in 2011. Between 2006 and 2010, the Monitor identified a trend of declining annual casualty rates, a decline that had been ongoing since the peak of almost 1,200 casualties recorded annually in 2005 and 2006.[9] Since 2010, annual casualty totals have been fairly consistent, ranging between 496 and 549 casualties per year.

Between 1982 and the end of 2012, PAICMA recorded 10,184 casualties (2,119 killed, 8,065 injured).[10] Civilians accounted for 38% (3,880) of the total and children accounted for 26% (994) of civilian casualties. Casualties have been recorded in 31 of Colombia’s 32 departments. The departments of Antioquia, Meta, Caquetá, Norte de Santander, and Nariño registered the highest number of casualties and accounted for more than half of the total (54%).

Cluster munition casualties

As identified in Case No. 12.416 (Santo Domingo Massacre versus the Republic of Colombia), heard before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, 17 civilians were killed and 27 were injured during a cluster munition strike in Santo Domingo, Colombia on 13 December 1998.[11]

Victim Assistance

There were at least 8,065 mine/ERW survivors in Colombia as of the end of 2012.[12] Of 608 mine/ERW victims registered within the Registry of Victims by March 2013, 51% were survivors with at least one type of disability, while 49% had no disability.[13]

Victim assistance since 1999[14]

Since monitoring began, mine/ERW survivors in Colombia have faced serious obstacles in accessing emergency medical attention, ongoing medical care, and physical rehabilitation because these services have been available only in major cities while most mine incidents occur in rural and remote areas, as well as in inaccessible conflict zones. In 1999, social and economic inclusion and psychological support for survivors was virtually nonexistent, even in most major cities, with the exception of two facilities in Bogota: the military hospital served military survivors and the Integral Center for Rehabilitation of Colombia (Centro Integral de Rehabilitación de Colombia, CIREC) served civilian survivors. Both facilities have consistently provided comprehensive rehabilitation services, including psychological support.

Throughout the period, a series of laws have outlined the rights of mine/ERW survivors as victims of terrorism or conflict through a process termed the “Route of Attention,” which is the legal framework through which victims can access their rights to compensation, rehabilitation, and other components of assistance by registering as victims and having the cost of assistance paid for or reimbursed through special government funds. However, complicated procedures to register as a mine victim and delayed reimbursements have meant that many survivors could not access the care they needed, or had to depend on support from the ICRC and NGOs to facilitate access or pay for services.

In 2006, the ICRC began a mine action program in Colombia that included collecting data on mine/ERW casualties, helping survivors to access victim assistance, and strengthening the physical rehabilitation sector to improve the quality and accessibility of these services. In 2009, the NGOs Mercy Corps and the Colombian Campaign Against Mines (CCCM) worked to decentralize physical rehabilitation services by supporting the opening of four new rehabilitation centers and improving the capacity of prosthetic technicians during the three year period of the project.

Through the work of CIREC, CCCM, and others, more than 60 local disabled persons’ organizations (DPOs) and survivor associations have been formed since 1999, increasing opportunities for peer-to-peer support as well as social and economic inclusion.

Government coordination of victim assistance began in Colombia in 2002 through the Antipersonnel Mines Observatory, which was replaced in June 2007 with PAICMA. Throughout the period, victim assistance coordination has been variable and at times lacking in continuity, a result of changes and restructuring within PAICMA and changes with the legal frameworks that outline the rights and assistance available to mine/ERW survivors.

The Victim’s Law was approved in 2011; it is considered one of the most comprehensive legal instruments to address the needs of mine/ERW victims, along with other victims of Colombia’s armed conflict. The adoption of the law heightened expectations of immediate assistance among many survivors. The regulations needed to begin implementing the law were passed at the end of 2011.[15]

Victim assistance in 2012

Overall, there was less access to victim assistance in 2012 as international funding decreased for NGOs, who filled gaps in existing care and facilitated access by paying for transportation and accommodations.[16]

In 2012, governmental and non-governmental actors made concerted efforts to inform survivors and their family members of their rights and how to access comprehensive assistance through the newly regulated Victim’s Law. In addition, actors worked to identify and resolve barriers to access in the most mine- and ERW-affected departments of the country. These actions were expected to generate a long-term improvement in overall access to victim assistance but, for the most part, their impact was not yet apparent in 2012.[17]

Assessing victim assistance needs

As a result of the improvement of data collection efforts in recent years, NGOs and service providers said that mine/ERW victim registries in 2012 were more complete than in previous years, most especially for victims of recent mine/ERW incidents; this improvement in the registries was as a necessary step for mine/ERW survivors to access government-supported services and programs.[18]

However, as of the end of 2012, not all mine/ERW victims registered with PAICMA had been transferred to the registry managed by the Unit for the Assistance and Comprehensive Reparation of Victims (Unidad para la Atención y Reparación Integral a Víctimas, or Victim’s Unit) due to a backlog in processing data.[19] Also, during 2012, victims of mines laid by criminal gangs were not covered under the Victim’s Law and thus not included in the registry of conflict victims. However, as of May 2013, the Constitutional Court of Colombia was reviewing the law to suggest amendments so that these victims would be included.[20]

In addition, survivors from remote areas, those who died as a result of the mine/ERW incident, and casualties of ERW remained undercounted.[21] There was a lack of awareness that victims of ERW had the same right as the victims of landmines to register for victim assistance.[22] It was also reported that there remained a lack of up-to-date information about the needs of victims from previous years, in part due to the lack of resources within departmental governments to access data held at the national level.[23]

In 2012, PAICMA began working with the Geneva International Center for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD) to adapt and expand the Information Management System for Mine Action (IMSMA) database so it could be used as a tool to monitor the needs of mine/ERW victims and their ability to access their rights. PAICMA worked with the Victim’s Unit to align the monitoring system with the implementation of the Victim’s Law. In defining the needs of victims, PAICMA included consideration of the family members of a victim.[24] A pilot of the adapted IMSMA database as a victim assistance monitoring tool was planned for the department of Antioquia in the second half of 2013.[25]

In 2012, in order to collect and verify information about survivors of recent mine/ERW incidents, PAICMA worked with departmental governments in Antioquia and Putamayo, the PCI, the ICRC, the Organization of American States (OAS), Handicap International (HI), CIREC, Awa Indigenous peoples, and CCCM. All actors collected information in different geographic areas or sectors.[26] To facilitate the verification of incident and casualty details and to register new victims, PAICMA also worked with departmental offices of the National Institute of Health, municipal and department authorities, health centers, and NGOs. Casualty data was available through the PAICMA website and was regularly provided to relevant government agencies and NGOs.[27] PAICMA also continued to identify and report on available victim assistance services online.[28]

In preparation for a Landmine Impact Survey, PAICMA carried out a Preliminary Opinion Collection (POC) in 1,522 local communities across nine departments with suspected mine hazard areas. The study included questions about the availability of “victim assistance” for that community. Victim assistance was defined generally to include anything from emergency medical assistance to financial or social assistance. Just 13% of local communities indicated the availability of any victim assistance while the remaining 87% said they were not aware of any victim assistance being available.[29]

CCCM continued to organize meetings of survivor networks and/or individual survivors in the most heavily mine-affected departments to assess survivor needs and identify gaps in available services.[30] The OAS Mine Action Program in Colombia collected information on the needs of survivors in several departments and facilitated access to services for those most in need.[31]

Other NGOs collected information about the needs of survivors taking part in their rehabilitation and economic inclusion programs.[32]

In 2012, mine incidents and victim assistance services provided to survivors continued to be recorded within the Epidemiological Monitoring System (Sistema de Vigilancia Epidemiológica, SIVIGILA) in the department of Antioquia. During the year, PAICMA and the National Institute of Health worked to further define the information to be collected, and the procedure for information-sharing at the local and departmental levels; they selected the departments of Meta, Cauca, Caquetá, Nariño, and Córdoba to introduce the system in 2013.[33]

Victim assistance coordination[34]

PAICMA held departmental and municipal mine action meetings in 2012 to coordinate victim assistance. In addition, PAICMA formed a subcommittee to address the issue of child mine victims which included the participation of relevant government and non-government representatives.[35] The outcomes of these meetings included the development of new programs for accessing victim assistance or “routes of attention,” for addressing regionally specific geographic accessibility; and for the needs of children and adolescents; coca eradicators; and the Awa indigenous people. Victim assistance coordination meetings improved data collection and verification process. Coordination also resulted in the election of a national survivor representative for the Victim’s Law.[36]

In 2012, there was no progress in the development of a national plan for mine/ERW victim assistance. However, in 2013 PAICMA launched a process to develop the “National Plan for Comprehensive Assistance to Victims of Landmines, ERW and IEDs” with financial support from the European Union.[37]

In 2012, the victim assistance coordination role of the National Victim Assistance Committee and its sub-committees was replaced, for the most part, by the Executive Committee for Reparations and its subcommittees, which are also the coordination mechanisms for the implementation of the Victims’ Law.[38] PAICMA, as a member of the Executive Committee for Reparations, worked to include victim assistance actors in coordination at all levels. It participated in multisectoral coordination meetings of the following seven subcommittees for the implementation of the Victim’s Law: 1) Assistance and Care; 2) Information Systems; 3) Administrative Compensation; 4) Prevention, Protection and Guarantees of No Repetition; 5) Differentiated Approaches (focused on specific needs of persons with disabilities and indigenous populations as sub-sets of victims); 6) Rehabilitation (including physical and psychosocial); and 7) Restitution of Land.

CCCM participated regularly in meetings of the sub-committee on Prevention, Protection and Guarantees of No Repetition.[39] In September 2013, the CCCM was elected to participate in the national committee of victim participation, as one of six designated national organizations in defense of the rights of victims.[40] HI participated in sub-committees on Information Systems and Rehabilitation.[41]

Some concerns were raised among victim assistance actors about the shift away from specific coordination of mine/ERW victim assistance to the broader framework for conflict victims. HI found that the meetings of the sub-committees of the Executive Committee for Reparations did not have significant outcomes for mine/ERW victims due to their lack of visibility as compared with the much larger numbers of displaced persons and other armed-conflict victims.[42] The national NGO Pastoral Social found that the “disappearance” of dedicated mine/ERW victim assistance coordination, particularly at the departmental and municipal levels, resulted in decreased opportunities for local coordination and that national coordination mechanisms for the Victim’s Law lacked sufficient knowledge of varying local contexts.[43]

On the other hand, the ICRC saw improvements in intersectoral victim assistance coordination and felt that PAICMA’s work to ensure the visibility of mine/ERW and IED victims within the Executive Committee on Reparations, alongside the broader group of armed-conflict victims, was “crucial.”[44] The ICRC worked to ensure that the definition of victims of explosives was not limited to victims of antipersonnel mines but also included victims of ERW and IEDs.[45]

The coordination committees for the Victim’s Law contributed to the development of the National Plan for the Comprehensive Reparation and Assistance for Victims of Violence, adopted in August 2012.[46] The plan was supported by a strategy for implementation, guidelines, and a monitoring mechanism. The plan’s implementation has a budget assigned through relevant government entities.[47] Ongoing monitoring of the plan is the responsibility of each thematic subcommittee under the executive committee.[48] As of September 2013, the route of attention for mine/ERW victims was in the process of being adapted in line with the national plan for the implementation of the Victim’s Law.[49]

To promote the integration of mine/ERW survivors in the National Disability System, during 2012 PAICMA continued participating in meetings of the National Disability Council. PAICMA worked to ensure the inclusion of the perspective of mine/ERW survivors in developments relating to other persons with disabilities and connected survivors with the National Disability System at departmental and national levels.[50]

The Victim’s Unit also participated in meetings of the National Disability Council.[51] However, it was reported that mine/ERW survivors continued to remain outside of efforts by the National Disability Council and the Ministry of Health to address issues of disability.[52]

Colombia provided detailed updates on the progress and challenges for victim assistance at the Twelfth Meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty in Geneva in December 2012, at the Mine Ban Treaty intersessional meetings in Geneva in May 2013, and through its Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 report submitted for calendar year 2012.[53]

Survivor inclusion and participation

In 2012, mine/ERW survivors, their representative organizations, and organizations working with conflict victims[54] participated in the sub-committee on victim participation and other sub-committees of the Executive Committee for Reparations.[55] The representative organizations also worked directly with the Victim’s Unit to develop the protocol for the effective participation of conflict victims.[56]

In August 2012, PAICMA, working with the Victim’s Unit and the CCCM, convened elections for the national representative of victims of mines, ERW, and IEDs to an interim coordinating committee for the first year of the implementation of the Victim’s Law. Representatives of mine victim associations from the departments of Huila, Caquetá, Cauca, Antioquia, Nariño, Norte de Santander, Santander, and Cundinamarca participated in the elections.[57]

In an effort to address weaknesses in the effective participation of survivors and their representative organizations in previous years,[58] PAICMA launched a pilot program to strengthen the capacity of three survivor associations from Antioquia, Cauca, and Bogota. The program focused on developing leadership and communication skills.[59] A representative of one of the three associations noted that the project remained in a development stage as of September 2013, without concrete outcomes.[60]

Service accessibility and effectiveness

Victim assistance activities[61]

Improvements in victim assistance that had been expected under the Victim’s Law were limited during 2012, with the national plan for the law’s implementation only having been approved in August. PAICMA reported improvements in departmental planning and coordination for the implementation of the Victim’s Law and expected that the impact would begin to be felt on the ground in the second half of 2013.[62] The ICRC noted some exceptions to the lack of progress, reporting improvements in access to emergency medical care and increased efficiency through which registered victims received reparations payments.[63]

In order to receive government support, survivors were assisted by PAICMA and numerous NGOs to register as victims of armed conflict and some improvements were seen in the number of people registering.[64] In 2012, just 105 survivors were unable to access government support because they lacked the proper documentation to register and instead received comprehensive assistance from the ICRC, as compared with 385 survivors in 2011.[65]

Emergency and ongoing medical care

In 2012, PAICMA worked with the Emergency Regulation Centers (Centros Reguladores de Urgencias y Emergencias, CRUE) to improve first response at the departmental level and to ensure that PAICMA is informed immediately following an incident so that victims can be registered and made aware of their rights “in real time.”[66]

The ICRC provided health facilities with emergency-treatment kits and also trained medical personnel and community-based first-responders in caring for the weapon-wounded, including landmine/ERW survivors. It worked with the authorities to improve the protection of health services during armed conflict or violence. The ICRC also helped with the emergency evacuation of people wounded by weapons.[67]

Physical rehabilitation, including prosthetics

In the departments of Antioquia and Norte de Santander, survivors noted some improvements in accessing physical rehabilitation or having the costs reimbursed by FOYSGA, the national healthcare fund responsible for paying for these costs.[68] However, in most parts of the country, the bureaucratic hurdles to having rehabilitation costs covered by FOYSGA remained the greatest obstacle to mine/ERW survivors seeking care.[69] Physical rehabilitation service providers lacked information about their obligations to mine/ERW survivors, forcing many survivors to undertake a long claims process for reimbursement. The CCCM worked with cases in which survivors ultimately failed to be reimbursed for rehabilitation costs.[70] The ICRC was recognized for playing a major role to fill gaps in rehabilitation for survivors.[71]

In 2012, a new rehabilitation center opened in the department of Caqueta, the result of a joint CCCM and Mercy Corps victim assistance project implemented from 2009–2011. It allowed mine/ERW survivors who previously had to travel to Bogota to access physical rehabilitation in their own region.[72] However, there remained a lack of rehabilitation centers, especially outside of major cities.[73]

The quality of physical rehabilitation improved in 2012 in the departments of Antioquia and Valle del Cauca with the introduction of a model of rehabilitation based on “Daily Life Activities” by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA).[74] The Ministry of Health and the ICRC worked with various providers of physical rehabilitation services to improve the quality of care so as to meet national standards established in 2010; service providers failing to meet these standards would be forced to cease operations by the end of 2013.[75]

In order to address the lack of trained rehabilitation specialists, the ICRC supported the training of several Colombians at the University of Don Bosco in El Salvador, and the professional prosthetics and orthotics course started in cooperation with SENA in 2010.[76]

Economic inclusion

The availability of economic inclusion activities for mine/ERW survivors decreased in 2012 due to the drop in international funding for targeted victim assistance programs. PAICMA sought greater inclusion of survivors in mainstream income-generating programs.[77] However, the results of this were not evident as of the end of 2012. In 2012, victim assistance actors in the department of Antioquia, with support from PAICMA, published a resource on lessons learned from the socioeconomic inclusion for mine/ERW survivors in Antioquia to raise awareness of best practices in income-generating activities.[78]

CCCM provided seed capital to mine/ERW survivors in Meta and in Bogota to start or grow small businesses.[79]

Psychological support, including peer support

Professional psychological support to mine/ERW survivors, as part of a comprehensive rehabilitation program, remained limited in 2012.[80] A study by Doctors Without Borders (Medicos Sin Fronteras, MSF) of Spain found that insufficient funding for psychological support was “particularly acute, further undermined by unclear procedures, roles and responsibilities.” In addition, mental health services were generally only available in larger hospitals in urban centers.[81]

In 2012, as part of its program for victims of conflict, the Medellin city government trained members of the community, including the leaders of survivor associations, in the provision of psychosocial assistance for survivors as well as other victims of armed conflict.[82] Several NGO programs provided psychosocial support, including peer support, as part of assistance programs for survivors.[83] As in previous years, nearly all psychological support programs were provided by NGOs with international funding. These efforts, while numerous, were insufficient to meet the level of need and were hampered by decreasing levels of international support for NGOs.[84]

The Victim’s Law requires the Ministry of Health to develop a program of psychosocial support to conflict victims though this was seen as a long-term solution.[85] In 2012, the Victim’s Unit created a guide on the psychological support that should be available to registered victims and created a coordination mechanism for psychosocial support in the department of Cauca.[86] The plans and programs developed in Cauca were to be expanded to other departments.[87]

Laws and policies

Colombia has legislation to protect the rights of persons with disabilities, though efforts to enforce these rights were limited in 2012. The law prohibits discrimination in accessing public buildings but there was no law requiring access to information and telecommunications for persons with disabilities.[88] Some improvements in physical accessibility were noted but these were limited to urban areas[89] while most survivors were based in rural and/or mountainous areas where there were no improvements to physical accessibility.[90]

Throughout 2012, PAICMA and victim assistance NGOs set out to make mine/ERW survivors aware of their rights under the Victim’s Law.[91] Additional, clearer information was needed, however; as of the end of the year, there was still confusion and misinformation around the law’s implications for survivors.[92]

Colombia ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) on 5 May 2011.