Ms Louise Winstanley:

Agenda 2030 for the UN sustainable development goals recognises that development cannot be achieved without addressing violent conflict and building peace. In 2016, more countries were experiencing violent conflict than at any other time in the previous 30 years. Much of this violence is due to reoccurring and protracted conflicts. ABColombia is a partner of Christian Aid Ireland.

For the next few minutes I will focus on Colombia.

Ireland has a long history of supporting peace in Colombia and this year it is particularly crucial. November will mark the fifth anniversary of the signing of the peace accord, which is currently in a very fragile state. In 2020, there was a quadrupling of the number of victims of massacres and combat increased by 65% compared with the last year before the signing of the peace accord. In January this year, over 11,000 people were forced to displace due to armed conflict as neo-paramilitary and other armed groups expanded their control over communities, territory and illicit economies. Targeted killings have also resulted in over 400 human rights defenders and 261 former FARC combatants being killed since 2016.

The coronavirus pandemic has played into this context, particularly affecting women and aggravating inequality and poverty. Women's participation in the labour market has fallen to the level of ten years ago as the pandemic hit the informal work in which women were engaged particularly hard. Confinement as a measure against coronavirus has meant those threatening women human rights defenders have been easily able to locate them. Many women defenders have been shot in or near their homes. Domestic violence has increased, as have femicides.

The conflict has left many women as heads of household, widening the inequality gap, and sexual and gender violence has been perpetrated as a weapon of war. One of the unique features of the Colombian peace accord is that it wove into all the agreements specific gender provisions. These gender provisions have the potential for structural change by reducing gender inequalities and furthering the rights of rural women, which is why when considering gender, peace and development in Colombia, the peace accord in an important roadmap not only for peace building but also for good governance policies.

Comprehensive implementation of these programmes would contribute to gender empowerment and equality. However, for the peace accord to be implemented, it is essential to address the escalating violence by near-paramilitary and other criminal groups. These groups will only effectively be dismantled if the intellectual authors are identified and prosecuted and their sources of finance and political protection are cut off. Ireland, with its position on the UN Security Council, should call for that body to establish an independent group or panel of experts on organised crime to examine the position in Colombia. A technical report from an independent group of experts would strengthen the work of the UN mission of verification to Colombia and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, both of which have security guarantees within their mandates. Such a report would also assist Colombia in the design and implementation of a public policy to facilitate the identification and prosecution of the intellectual authors and a dismantling of these groups.

Colombia is a country which, compared with many other complex cases of conflict around the world, has a real possibility of achieving peace. It needs a country like Ireland to throw its weight and experience behind achieving the appointment of UN Security Council group of experts on organised crime that can offer the technical expertise that Colombia needs now.