HRW Submits Report to UN on Colombia Rights Review
We write in advance of the 78th session of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (the “Committee”) and its review of Colombia. This submission focuses on issues of poverty and inequality, labor violations and sexual exploitation of webcam models, deaths from acute malnutrition in children under 5, and the UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation.
Rural Poverty, Access to Health and Education (articles 12 and 13)
According to World Bank data, Colombia has a Gini index of 53.9 for 2023.[1] This inequality manifests in the 16.5 percentage point gap in multidimensional poverty between urban areas (7.8%) and rural areas (24.3%)[2]. Short-term or prolonged displacement due to armed conflict and ongoing violence has severely disrupted displaced people’s lives, worsening food insecurity, deepening poverty, and increasing inequality, especially for single women-headed households, who have lost family members, or who themselves have been directly targeted and displaced.
In rural areas, conditions are more precarious, creating fertile ground for the perpetuation of violence. This situation is especially true in the 170 remote municipalities most affected by armed conflict. These are the municipalities prioritized for the implementation of the 2016 Peace Agreement signed between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC). The rural development programs established by the Peace Agreement (Programas de Desarrollo con Enfoque Territorial, PDET) seek to increase the presence of state institutions in areas highly affected by the armed conflict, poverty, and illegal economies.[3]
The government’s own statistics put informal employment in rural municipalities most affected by the conflict at 96%, while the national average is 73%. Likewise, educational lag rates in these municipalities stand at 33%, compared to the national average of 24%. The gap in access to water sources is 45 percentage points between the rural areas of these municipalities (55%) and the national level (10%)[4]. Colombian police statistics indicate the homicide rate in these municipalities (40.5 per 100,000 inhabitants) is 14.1 percentage points higher than the national rate (26.4)[5].
Efforts to implement the PDET in these municipalities have had limited success.[6] As of July 2025, authorities had finalized only a handful of public works established under the PDET[7] in some 170 municipalities and 57% of the PDET “initiatives” were under implementation.[8]
Recommendations
Human Rights Watch encourages the Committee to call on Colombia to:
Human Rights Watch recommends the Committee ask Colombia:
Labor Violation and Sexual Exploitation in Webcam Studios (article 7)
In December 2024, Human Rights Watch published a 175-page report documenting serious abuses by studios producing content for the billion-dollar adult webcam industry.[9] The report – based on 18 months of research and interviews with 55 sex workers with experience in the industry, in collaboration with La Liga de Salud Trans and Corporación Calle 7 Colombia – exposes the poor working conditions Colombian webcam workers face; those interviewed reported unhygienic conditions, long shifts without breaks, and coercion to perform sexual acts they find degrading, traumatizing, or physically painful.
Workers report streaming from small, confined cubicles with a lack of ventilation, and bedbug and cockroach infestations. Some identify verbal, physical, and sexual abuse by studio management, and coercion to perform sex acts to which they did not consent. Labor conditions include wage theft, fines for taking breaks to eat and use the bathroom, and computer keyboards, mouses, and furniture covered in bodily fluids from other employees. Workers developed rashes and infections and had a lack of mental health support.
All those interviewed were adults, though several reported that some violated platforms’ age restrictions by reusing accounts that were registered for former adult models, allowing them to start before the age of 18.
Nearly all of those interviewed (49 of 50) told Human Rights Watch they had not seen or signed the terms of service from any platform on which they streamed. Instead, most said the studios created accounts for them. This left models without crucial information to help ensure they were paid fairly; in some cases, this contributed to models experiencing wage theft, sexual coercion, and labor exploitation by the studios.
All models interviewed said that they chose to work as webcammers and were not forced or coerced into doing so. At the same time, all report that they felt surprised, deceived, or misled about several conditions of their employment, including what they would be paid, sex acts they were expected to perform, or studio sanitation. For some, the inability to take their account with them, compounded by small amounts of debt they accrued at the studio store or while living in the studio, also made it more difficult to leave.
Recommendations
Human Rights Watch encourages the Committee to call on Colombia to:
Human Rights Watch recommends the Committee ask Colombia:
Deaths from Acute Malnutrition in Children Under 5 (articles 11 and 12)
In 2023, the mortality rate per 100,000 inhabitants from acute malnutrition in children under five was 6.6, representing a 43.5% increase compared to the 4.6 rate recorded in 2017.[10] Children from Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities have been significantly impacted, including those living in Vichada, on the border with Venezuela, with a rate of 108.3; Chocó, on Colombia’s Pacific coast, with 65.8; and La Guajira, with 52.5. Acute malnutrition affected 18.5% of Indigenous children and 3.1% of migrant children under five in 2022. In 2023, children from Indigenous groups accounted for 26% of acute malnutrition cases and 60% of deaths from malnutrition.[11]
In 2020, Human Rights Watch documented how this situation particularly affects Wayuu Indigenous children and their communities in La Guajira, where mismanagement and widespread corruption by local officials, a humanitarian crisis in neighboring Venezuela, and the effects of climate change have exacerbated food and water insecurity and resulting malnutrition. [12] The official death rate of children under 5 from malnutrition in La Guajira was nearly eight times the national rate in 2023.[13]
Recommendations
Human Rights Watch encourages the Committee to call on Colombia to:
Human Rights Watch recommends the Committee ask Colombia:
UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation (article 2)
Human Rights Watch notes with appreciation the support Colombia has shown to the UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation thus far, including by organizing the first Latin American and Caribbean Tax Summit in 2023.[14]
Equitable global tax rules are crucial to supporting human rights economies that align domestic and international economic decision-making with the realization and fulfillment of human rights. The ICESCR obliges states parties to use the maximum of their available resources to fulfill economic, social and cultural rights – such as health, education, and social security – including through international cooperation. Tax cooperation is critical to realizing these and other rights obligations as it makes it possible for governments to raise revenues to fund these rights, as well as by reducing inequality within and between countries. The Committee has consistently urged states, including Colombia, to align their tax systems with their human rights obligations, and has emphasized the importance of strengthening international cooperation on taxation and ensuring that their tax rules do not undermine other governments’ ability to meet their ICESCR obligations.[15]
Recommendations
Human Rights Watch encourages the Committee to call on Colombia to:
In line with the Committee’s previous recommendations to Colombia in its State Party reports,[16] continue to take the necessary steps to examine the impact of its taxation policies on reducing poverty and inequality, and make any adjustments necessary to ensure its policies are redistributive and increase the resources available for the progressive realization of economic, social and cultural rights.
[1] “Gini index,” World Bank Group webpage, https://datos.bancomundial.org/indicador/SI.POV.GINI?most_recent_value_desc=true.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/08/11/human-rights-watch-submission-to-the-united-nations-committee-on-economic-social