63
and to prevent other violations of their human rights. It is a fundamental part of the State’s duty to
adopt comprehensive measures to respond to violence against women with the due diligence required.
222. This means that the duty of protection, reinforced in relation to women human rights
defenders, is accentuated in situations of armed conflict, such as one which still affects Colombia. In
that context, the Commission considers it proven that the Colombian State has been put on notice
continuously by the international and national community as to how women who work in the defense of
human rights are generally subject to harassment and threats by the armed actors on considering that
their leadership threatens the social and territorial control they pursue.287 Accordingly, the IACHR
considers that the Colombian State was aware of the situation of risk in which the five women human
rights defenders in the matter under examination were working.
2.
Analysis of the Concrete Facts in light of these Considerations
223. Based on the proven facts, Ms. Rúa and Ospina were informed during 2002 by residents
of Comuna 13 that their names were included in several lists of persons that the paramilitary groups
were planning to assassinate.288 When they became aware that their names were included in these
lists, resulted in a series of events including the forced displacement of Ms. Rua and Ospina in June and
November of 2002 respectively; the permanent cease of their activities in defense of human rights; and
the gradual occupation and distribution of their homes between 2002 and 2003; with effects on the
victims, and their family members which have lasted until the present.
224. The Commission observes that the death threats described by Ms. Rúa and Ospina
coincide with the practice identified by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in
Colombia, in her annual report of 2002, where members of the illegal armed groups employed the same
against members of social organizations as a primary strategy to cause their displacement and to
appropriate themselves of their belongings.289
Several elements in the file before the IACHR also
suggest that Ms. Luz Dary Ospina Bastidas and Myriam Eugenia Rúa Figueroa suffered these threats as
the result of their denunciation of crimes committed by the paramilitary groups in Comuna 13, such as
287
See, for example, United Nations, Report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, Ms. Rhadika
Coomaraswamy, Mission to Colombia, March 11, 2002, paras. 90-91; United Nations, Report by the Representative of the
United Nations Secretary General on Human Rights Defenders, Hina Jilani, Visit to Colombia, April 24, 2002,paras. 138-147;
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, Observations on the Report by the State of Colombia, February
3, 1999, para. 271; United Nations, Reports of the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights on the situation of
human rights in Colombia, Annual Report 2002, February 24, 2003, paras. 102-108; Annual Report 2003, February 17, 2004,
paras. 85-89; and Annual Report 2004, February 28, 2005, pp. 4 and 120; Mesa de Trabajo Mujeres y Conflicto Armado, Informe
sobre Violencia Socio-Política Contra Mujeres, Jóvenes, y Niñas en Colombia, Third Report 2002, February 2003, p. 14; Mesa de
Trabajo Mujer y Conflicto Armado, Informe sobre Violencia Socio-Política contra las Mujeres, Jóvenes y Niñas en Colombia,
Mujer y Conflicto Armado, October 2004, pp. 91-102; Constitutional Court of Colombia, Judgment T-496 of 2008 (Case T1783291); and Constitutional Court of Colombia, Order 092-08.
See also IACHR, Violence and Discrimination Against Women in the Armed Conflict in Colombia, OEA/Ser.L/V/II. Doc. 67,
October 18, 2006, para. 226; IACHR, Annual Report 2009, Follow-up Report on the Report Violence and Discrimination Against
Women in the Armed Conflict in Colombia, OEA/Ser.L./V/II. Doc. 67, October 18, 2006, paras. 105-106.
288
Annexes 3 and 15. Statements from Miryam Eugenia Rúa Figueroa and Luz Dary Ospina Bastidas received by the
GIDH addressed to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, April 27, 2012.
289
para. 32.
United Nations, Report of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia, Annual Report 2002,