Committee on the Rights of the Child

List of issues in relation to the combined sixth and seventh periodic reports of Colombia *

1.The State Party is requested to submit in writing additional, updated information, of 10,700 words maximum, by 15 June 2025. The Committee may take up all aspects of children’s rights set out in the Convention during the dialogue with the State Party.

Part I

2.Please provide information on:

(a)Implementation of the Children and Adolescents’ Code and progress made in harmonizing the country’s legislative framework with the Convention;

(b)Results of the implementation of the National Policy for Children and Adolescents 2018–2030, in particular for girls, children over 6 years old and adolescents, including specific information on its impact in the areas most affected by violence;

(c)Measures to ensure effective coordination within the Colombian Family Welfare Institute and to clarify the role of the Ministry of Equality and Equity established pursuant to Act No. 2281 in 2023;

(d)Steps to maintain the progressive increase, since 2019, in the budgets of programmes and services for children and adolescents;

(e)Measures to strengthen the system for collecting data on children and adolescents, keep that data up to date and ensure that they are disaggregated by location, age, gender, ethnic group, disability, socioeconomic situation and migration status;

(f)Specific measures to protect defenders of the rights of children and adolescents, including child and adolescent human rights defenders;

(g)Public policies to uphold the rights of children and adolescents to access to justice and effective remedies;

(h)Measures related to the operation of the juvenile criminal justice system, in particular with regard to the allocation of resources, the use of pretrial detention and the promotion of the application of non-custodial sentences as a definitive sentence across different regions.

3.Please inform the Committee about policies and measures adopted to:

(a)Address discrimination against children and adolescents, including on the grounds of age, sex, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity and migration status, in particular specific measures to address the disproportionate impact of the conflict on Indigenous, Afro-Colombian, campesino and migrant children and adolescents;

(b)Ensure that public servants of the administrative, legislative and judicial authorities apply the principle of the best interests of the child;

(c)Reduce the poverty and socioeconomic inequality indices of children and adolescents, especially Indigenous, Afro-Colombian and campesino children and adolescents and those living in marginalized urban areas;

(d)Ensure that all children and adolescents have the right to participate in all areas, including in the development and implementation of environmental protection and climate change policies and in the process of determining nationally determined contributions.

4.Please provide information on the results of measures taken to ensure universal access to birth registration, and on measures planned to ensure access to birth registration in remote and hard-to-reach areas, remove administrative obstacles to birth registration and address difficulties faced by migrant parents from the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in that regard.

5.Please provide information on measures envisaged to uphold the rights of children and adolescents to freedom of association and peaceful assembly.

6.Please provide information on:

(a)Local child protection infrastructure for reporting and responding to ill‑treatment, abuse and neglect;

(b)Impact of prevention, protection, restitution and rehabilitation measures in the context of efforts to combat violence against children and adolescents, including the results achieved by the National Alliance to Combat Violence against Children and Adolescents;

(c)Measures taken to prevent, investigate and punish acts of torture and other cruel or degrading treatment or punishment perpetrated against children and adolescents by State agents or members of non-State armed groups;

(d)Initial results of the National Pedagogical and Prevention Strategy against Corporal Punishment and Cruel, Humiliating or Degrading Treatment 2022–2030;

(e)Measures to protect children and adolescents in areas affected by gang violence and high homicide rates, in particular in the city of Quibdó;

(f)Specific measures and legal action to prevent gender-based violence, including the murder and disappearance of young and adolescent girls;

(g)Measures, including the development a legal framework, to ensure that children and adolescents are protected in the digital environment;

(h)Measures to provide specialized care services for child and adolescent victims of sexual violence, in particular Indigenous children and adolescents, including those belonging to Indigenous Peoples living in voluntary isolation and initial contact, such as the Nukak and Jiw Peoples.

7.Please provide additional information on:

(a)Specific measures to implement the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, including information on the results of the National Policy for the Prevention and Eradication of the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents 2018–2028;

(b)Protocols, mechanisms and specialized services for the identification, reporting and investigation of cases of sexual abuse and exploitation of children and adolescents and the prosecution and punishment of the perpetrators in such cases, including in cases involving the Catholic Church, and the rehabilitation and reparation measures adopted for the victims;

(c)Measures to enforce the prohibition of all forms of child marriage, including de facto unions, and the practice of female genital mutilation, especially among some Indigenous Peoples.

8.Please provide information on:

(a)Specific action taken towards the development of a national policy for the deinstitutionalization of children and adolescents;

(b)Support measures for the families of children and adolescents in the process of family reunification.

9.Please provide information on:

(a)Specific measures to ensure universal access to quality health services, with a special focus on early childhood, in particular measures aimed at ensuring universal vaccination coverage and preventing infant mortality caused by diarrheal diseases and acute respiratory infections;

(b)Measures to provide mental healthcare for children and adolescents, particularly in hard-to-reach and conflict-affected areas;

(c)Specific measures to prevent pregnancy among young and adolescent girls, especially in rural areas, and their results;

(d)Results of measures taken to eliminate malnutrition in children and adolescents.

10.Please provide detailed information on:

(a)Progress towards ensuring universal coverage of early schooling and early childhood education;

(b)Measures to prevent children and adolescents from dropping out of school, particularly in marginalized urban, rural and coastal areas, as well as in hard-to-access and conflict-affected areas;

(c)Specific measures to ensure universal access to quality education, including within the framework of specific educational systems for Indigenous Peoples and Afro‑Colombian communities.

11.Please provide additional information on:

(a)Specific measures to protect migrant children and adolescents, in particular those in an irregular situation, and ensure that adequate account is taken of their special needs;

(b)Measures, procedures and programmes designed to ensure respect for the rights of child and adolescent migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees, stateless children and adolescents and child and adolescent migrants in transit;

(c)Legislative and policy measures to prevent internal displacement and specific actions to provide special protection to children and adolescents who are victims of internal displacement, including in the region of Catatumbo;

12.Please provide updated, detailed information on:

(a)Specific measures to implement the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict;

(b)Measures to protect and provide support to children and adolescents in the context of the armed conflict, in particular under the Security, Defence and Citizen Coexistence Policy: Guarantees for Life and Peace 2022–2026, and the declaration of a state of internal disturbance;

(c)Measures taken and envisaged to prevent the recruitment, use and exploitation of children and adolescents by organized armed and criminal groups and to protect them from sexual violence;

(d)Measures to strengthen the identification of children and adolescents at risk of being recruited, such as the expansion of early warning and data-collection systems in hard‑to-access and conflict-affected areas;

(e)Progress made in the investigation and prosecution of persons responsible for violence against children and adolescents in the context of the armed conflict, including members of the security forces, and in the search for children and adolescents who have been recruited or disappeared;

(f)Measures to ensure that child and adolescent recruits are considered victims of the armed conflict, provide them with immediate and adequate assistance and facilitate their rehabilitation and reintegration;

(g)Measures, and their results, to implement the Safe Schools Declaration, in order to uphold the right to education in the context of the armed conflict.

Part II

13.The Committee invites the State Party to provide a brief update, of no more than three pages, on the information presented in its report with regard to the following:

(a)New bills or laws, and their respective regulations;

(b)New institutions and their mandates or institutional reforms;

(c)Recently introduced policies, programmes and action plans and their scope and financing, especially those relating to oversight of activities conducted under the National Family Welfare System;

(d)Recent ratifications of human rights instruments.

Part III

Data, statistics and other information, if available

14.Please provide consolidated information for the past three years on the budget lines regarding children and social sectors, indicating the percentage of each budget line in terms of the total national budget and the gross national product. Please also provide information on the geographical allocation of those resources.

15.For the following questions, please provide, if available, updated statistical data for the past three years, disaggregated by age, sex, ethnic origin, national origin, geographical location and socioeconomic status.

16.Please provide the statistical data indicated in paragraph 15 on:

(a)Child and adolescent victims of murder, torture and disappearance;

(b)Deaths of children and adolescents caused by abuse and neglect, suicide and accidents, including road accidents;

(c)Complaints, investigations, prosecutions and sentences related to the sexual abuse or sexual exploitation of children and adolescents, including within the family;

(d)Adolescent pregnancies, including information on whether the pregnancies were terminated or carried to term;

(e)Children and adolescents who abuse substances, with an indication of the type of substance;

(f)Children and adolescents in child labour situations and labour inspections carried out;

(g)Children and adolescents in street situations;

(h)Children and adolescents involved with non-State armed groups or criminal organizations.

17.Please report, in accordance with paragraph 15, on the number of children deprived of a family environment:

(a)In alternative care facilities;

(b)Placed with foster families;

(c)Who had been adopted.

18.Please provide data, disaggregated by type of disability and the indicators enumerated in paragraph 15, on the number of children with disabilities who are or have been:

(a)Living with their families;

(b)Living with foster families;

(c)Living in institutions;

(d)Attending regular primary schools;

(e)Attending regular secondary schools;

(f)Attending special schools;

(g)Out of school;

(h)Abandoned by their families.

19.Please provide information on the social and economic situation of asylum-seeking, refugee and stateless children and adolescents and their access to healthcare, housing, education and the justice system.

20.Please provide data disaggregated by type of offence and the indicators enumerated in paragraph 15, on the number of children with disabilities who are or have been:

(a)In the juvenile justice system;

(b)Arrested;

(c)Referred to diversion programmes;

(d)In pretrial detention;

(e)Serving a custodial sentence, with an indication of the length of sentence.

21.Please provide information on how a child rights-based approach is integrated into the planning, implementation and monitoring of measures for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, including with regard to the participation of children and adolescents and data collection, and how these measures promote the realization of children’s rights under the Convention and the Optional Protocols thereto.

22.Please provide the Committee with an update of any data in the report that may have been superseded by more recent data collected or other new developments.

23.In addition, the State Party may list areas affecting children and adolescents that it considers to be of priority with regard to the implementation of the Convention.