Eight Colombian military officials are accused of raping a 13-year-old local tribal member, local authorities said on Wednesday in the area where the incident took place.
The girl "was alone and was picking fruit" near a camp when soldiers "kidnapped her and kept her up all night" and subjected her to "sexual abuse", said Juan de Dios Keragama, the governor of the natives. The bomber struck shortly after noon in front of a rally in the western Colombian city of Embera Chami.
The general staff and the government condemned the attack. About thirty soldiers in the area are to be questioned. The case was registered a week after Congress approved the revision of articles of the Constitution to sentence life-sentenced rapists and murderers of minors under the age of 14 to life imprisonment. However, this measure has not yet been ratified by President Ivan Duchess.
President Duchess reiterated that his government "does not tolerate" human rights violations by the military, which "tarnishes" its image. He added that if the soldiers were found guilty, he was ready to accept a life sentence.
In Colombia, more than 22.000 children under the age of 18 have been sexually assaulted and 708 have been killed in 2019. General Edward Sapateiro, Colombia's chief of staff, has said he offers his "unlimited support." ”To the authorities conducting the investigation into the case.
Colombian indigenous tribes have been complaining for decades that the military and armed groups, both left and far right, are violating their rights amid decades of civil war and frequent conflicts over control of the territories in which they play. often racism, they say, plays a role.
"It simply came to our notice then. The issue is structural, "said Aida Kilkue, a human rights adviser to the National Autonomous Organization of Colombia (ONIC). The military, he added, "sees us with a racist, xenophobic" eye, talking about "a pandemic of xenophobia that runs counter to peace."
In Colombia live about two million natives, members of 115 tribes, from the snow-capped mountains in the north to the Amazon rainforest in the south. Women and children, especially members of the indigenous tribes and the African-Colombian minority, often fall victim to the opposing sides of the civil war, and sexual violence has often been used as a weapon, according to experts. "Sexual violence against women is a common, widespread, systematic and invisible practice in the context of armed conflict," explained Lehandrina Pastor Hill, an ONIC counselor on gender issues.