How Political Exclusion Affects Colombia’s Afro-Descendant Minority
How Political Exclusion Affects Colombia’s Afro-Descendant Minority
Expanding a quota system would help to integrate Afro-Colombians into national party channels and prevent them from being continually marginalized, suggests AS/COA’s Christopher Sabatini.
A historic lack of political representation in Colombia’s political system is one of the key focuses in the ongoing social, political and economic struggle of the Afro-Colombian community.
With 5 million people, or 10.6% of the total population, Colombia has the largest Afro-descendant population in Latin America, behind only Brazil, according to a 2005 census. There are, however, serious difficulties in quantifying blackness, given the mixed ethnic backgrounds of many Colombians. The stigma associated with African descent in much of the country leads mixed-race individuals to identify away from their Afro roots, and unofficial figures place the Afro-Colombian community at as high as 25% of the total population.
In comparison, Congress, comprised of a 102-seat Senate and 166-seat House of Representatives, only holds two reserved seats for Afro-Colombians in the lower chamber....
“The indigenous sort of gained an advance on Afro-Colombians by getting reserved senate seats [...] where Afro-colombians did not,” said Christopher Sabatini the Americas Society/Council of the Americas (AS/COA) Senior Director of the Washington-based think-tank, Christopher Sabatini told Colombia Reports....
Still, studies show, and social organizations confirm, that the Afro-Colombian community continues to suffer disproportionately from issues such as poverty, violence, and poor social services. The AS/COA’s most recent report, moreover, raises serious questions as to Afro-Colombian inclusion in society, especially in the political sphere.
Between 2002 and 2010, according to the study, only two bills proposed by Afro-Colombian representatives directly affecting the Afro-Colombian community were approved. Within this period, Afro-Colombian legislators proposed 25 such bills. Other lawmakers had better relative success, as was the case with the Anti-Discrimination Law, which imposed prison sentencing for acts based on discrimination of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or nationality.
“Most of the laws have been symbolic, whether it is sort of creation of recognition of their race or ethnicity, scholarships in regional universities, those things have been the typical types,” Sabatini said....
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