COLOMBIA: Black Communities Organise in Country’s Poorest Region

COLOMBIA: Black Communities Organise in Country’s Poorest Region
By Constanza Vieira and Diana Cariboni

Credit:Jesús Abad Colorado

Transporting building materials by "panga".

QUIBDÓ, Colombia, Jan 9 (IPS) - During the "high season" of popular festivals in Colombia’s Chocó region, "pregnant girls as young as 13 start flowing in," says a nursing assistant in the obstetrics department at the hospital of the provincial capital, Quibdó.

The fiesta of San Pancho -- as Saint Francis of Assisi, the city’s patron saint, is known -- is a two-week festival that begins on Sept. 20, with traditional music, abundant drinking, dancing and street processions of comparsas or conga bands through the neighbourhoods.

Not long afterwards, "we have around 50 cases of abortion complications a week," the nursing assistant told IPS, saying she had even seen 10-year-old girls with complications from back-street abortions. (As in most of Latin America, abortion is illegal in Colombia except in cases in which the mother’s life is in danger, the foetus is badly deformed or the pregnancy was a result of rape.)

In Colombia’s Pacific coast region, where Chocó is located, the proportion of young women who got pregnant between the ages of 15 and 19 grew from 17.5 percent in 1990 to 23 percent in 2000, according to official figures.

In the rundown public hospital in Quibdó, which carries the name of the town’s patron saint, there are only 26 beds, and many women have to lie "on benches or on the floor." In addition, "there are hardly any materials," said the nursing assistant.
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"In many communities, the houses have been damaged or destroyed by the violence and forced displacement," says MENA.

That is why the list of needs includes a plan for building and repairing housing.

"The three of us are the heads of our households. The forced displacement has put many of us in that condition," says Mosquera.

Between 1999 and 2006, nearly 70,000 people in Chocó were forcibly displaced, of a total 440,000 inhabitants, according to the non-governmental Consultancy on Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES).

Because the violence "targets men more than women, it’s important for women to receive training, because you’re left alone with five or seven kids and you don't know how to survive all by yourself," says Mosquera.

That was the desperate situation of one local woman who approached these IPS reporters in a Western Union agency in Quibdó, while she waited for a few pesos sent by a distant relative. Her husband had been killed by the far-right paramilitaries in a rural area near the provincial capital.

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Young Afro-Colombians killed in a massacre in Buenaventura, on April 1, 2005

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Located in a search for photos of Quibdo, Colombia:

" All families have suffered. Once I asked the pupils in my class, 11-year-old children, how many of them had lost a family member while the paramilitary were here. Out of 28 children, 20 told me they had at least one family member killed by the armed groups." teacher from a rural community
Colombia is a thriving country with a lively culture and growing level of progress. It has modern cities and flourishing scientific and education centres. But behind this upbeat image, an extremely violent, internal conf lict has carried on unabated for decades. Fuelled by drug trafficking and foreign military assistance, the struggle by guerillas, paramilitary groups and government forces to control territory and resources continues to take a high toll on the civilian population.

People who live in conf lict zones in rural Colombia are often perceived as resources for the armed actors who operate locally.

"We were taken somewhere and they started to threaten us and talk about chainsaws. After awhile, they let us go. I grabbed my kids and we left immediately for another town. We left only with the clothes we were wearing; we walked all night and part of the day, and the kids kept asking for food..." mother from a rural community

Violence is the leading cause of death in Colombia. During the last decade, the homicide rate has been approximately 60 per 100,000 inhabitants, one of the highest rates in the world. For every person who dies as a result of violence, many more struggle to survive it, often burdened by a range of physical and mental problems.

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