Peace efforts in Colombia will not work as long as economic segregation is the norm: UN rapporteur

Colombia’s peace efforts will bear no fruit as long as the South American country’s citizens are divided by social and economic strata comparable to India’s caste system, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights has said.

The Colombian government classifies households into six economic strata, with those living in wealthier neighborhoods paying more for public services to subsidize those living in poorer communities.

The goals of this system may be noble, but the result is social segregation and entrenchment of poverty, Special Rapporteur Olivier De Schutter told Reuters in Bogotá, on the occasion of the publication on Wednesday of its latest report on Colombia.

It is very easy for people to never mix with other strata and for rich Colombians to completely ignore the problem of poverty in the country, he said.

The result is that children from low-income families never make the connections they need to reach their full potential and makes them easy targets for recruitment by illegal armed groups, De Schutter said.

“The only comparison I can think of is with the caste system. Although this does not have a religious origin in Colombia, it is certainly imposed socially in an equally terrifying way,” said De Schutter.

The Colombian government said it had no comment yet because its officials were focused on negotiations to try to end a road blockade by truckers protesting a rise in the price of diesel.

According to DANE, last year 33% of the nearly 50 million Colombians were living in monetary poverty, and 11.4% in extreme poverty. Both figures were slightly lower than the previous year.

Although leftist President Gustavo Petro has raised the minimum wage and pushed through a pension reform that guarantees a minimum monthly income to poor elderly people among his top poverty reduction goals, social mobility has not improved, according to De Schutter.

His remarks came after a 10-day trip to Colombia, where he visited four areas, including the city of Cali and Ciudad Bolívar, a poor sector of the capital, Bogotá.

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