Tag: Child Combatants

July 23, 2020

Maximum FARC party leader Rodrigo Londoño repeats the claim, uttered a day earlier by FARC Senator Griselda Lobo, that the guerrilla group did not recruit children as a matter of policy—while also admitting that the FARC’s policy was to accept recruits as young as 15 years old.

Tags: Child Combatants, Human Rights, Transitional Justice

July 23, 2020

July 20, 2020

  • One of the FARC’s five senators, Griselda Lobo Silva alias Sandra Ramírez, is named the second vice-president of the Senate for the chamber’s 2020-21 term. Lobo was the partner of maximum FARC leader Manuel Marulanda, who died in 2008. Ex-president and then-senator Álvaro Uribe praises Lobo for her “coherence.” Two days later, the senator ignites controversy by denying that the FARC recruited minors.
Colombian Senate photo.

Tags: Child Combatants, Congress of Colombia, Political Participation, Politics of Peace

July 20, 2020

‘The Guerrillas Are the Police’: Social Control and Abuses by Armed Groups in Colombia’s Arauca Province and Venezuela’s Apure State

Published by Human Rights Watch, January 22, 2020.

Abuses including murder, forced labor, child recruitment, and rape are often committed as part of the groups’ strategy to control the social, political, and economic life of Arauca and Apure. Impunity for such abuses is the rule.

Tags: Arauca, Armed Groups, Borders, Child Combatants, Dissident Groups, ELN, Human Rights, Venezuela Crisis

January 22, 2020