A new report released by Amnesty International reviews the attacks against human rights defenders across the world. Colombia appears as the most dangerous country in terms of known murders of human rights activists. You can see the full report here.
Here below is an excerpt from the report regarding violence agiants trade unionists:
“…Human rights defenders working in the field of labour rights are also frequent targets of attack. Trade unionists, some of the most visible activists promoting workers’ struggles for the right to decent conditions and pay as well as other human rights, have suffered threats, unjust prosecutions, arbitrary detentions and killings in many parts of the world. According to the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), trade unionists in the following 11 countries were killed in relation to their activities in 2016: Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Italy, Mauritania, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines and Venezuela.
During the internal conflict, trade unionists in Colombia were among those most at risk in the world, as they were often the target of attacks by paramilitary forces. The National Trade Union School (Escuela Nacional Sindical, ENS) recorded 2,863 killings of trade unionists and union members from 1986 to 2011.50 Although the violence has slowed down, killings have still been recorded in recent years: between 2010 and 2015, 186 union members were killed and 22 forcibly disappeared, most of them union leaders. In November 2013, Óscar López Triviño, a trade union leader with the National Trade Union of Food Industry Workers (Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Industria de Alimentos, SINALTRAINAL), which represents workers in the Nestlé plant in Bugalagrande, Valle del Cauca Department, was shot and killed. His colleague José Onofre Esquivel Luna was shot at by two men on motorbikes in June 2014 despite receiving state protection at the time. He survived the attack…”