CAT/C/COL/CO/4
(d)
ILO Convention concerning the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the
Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour (No. 182) (ratified on 28 January 2005);
(e)
United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the
Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and
Children (ratified on 4 August 2004);
(f)
Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of
children, child prostitution and child pornography (ratified on 11 November 2003).
4.
The Committee welcomes the continued cooperation of the State party with the
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) since the
establishment of an office in the country in 1997.
5.
The Committee considers as positive the State party’s cooperation with the special
rapporteurs, special representatives and working groups of the Human Rights Council and
the numerous visits carried out by these human rights mechanisms.
6.
The Committee welcomes the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court and its
extensive references to international human rights standards.
7.
The Committee considers it positive that the jurisdiction of the International
Criminal Court has been accepted without qualification by the State party since 2009.
8.
The Committee expresses its satisfaction at the absence of the death penalty in the
State party.
9.
The Committee notes with satisfaction the efforts being made by the State party to
reform legislation, policies and procedures with the aim of ensuring better protection of the
right not to be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment, including:
(a)
The human rights certification criterion for promotion in the security
services, adopted by the Ministry of Defence in November 2008;
(b)
The adoption of the National Plan for the Search for Disappeared Persons in
(c)
The Policy to Combat Impunity (CONPES 3411 of 2006);
2007;
(d)
The organization of training courses on the Istanbul and Minnesota Protocols,
with advice from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime;
(e)
The establishment of a special investigation group within the National
Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Unit in the Office of the Public
Prosecutor of the Nation on the topic of torture.
C.
Principal subjects of concern and recommendations
Definition of torture
10.
The Committee notes that the Criminal Code includes a definition of the crime of
torture. However, it is concerned that, in practice, a charge relating to crimes of torture does
not clearly identify torture as a specific and separate offence, given that it is subsumed
under aggravating circumstances relating to other offences regarded as more serious by
judicial officials. The Committee is also concerned about the possibility of erroneous
definitions that assimilate the crime of torture to other less serious criminal offences such as
that of personal injury, which does not require proof of the offender’s intention. The
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