3rd session on the Forum for Minority Issues Ms. Clemencia Carabali on Item III and IV Good morning everybody! On behalf of the Afro-Colombian women I would like to thank the organisers of this important event and most particularly the Independent Expert, Dr Gay McDougall for having made this Forum possible. I would like to thank all her team as well. Women are half of the world, were the past, are the present and we are still building for everybody. My name is Clemencia Carabali, I am from Colombia, and I am part of the Municipal Association of Women. Afro-Colombians according to 2005 census represent 10.5% of the population and we have contributed to the building of the economic political cultural life of the country right from the beginning, right from when we worked as slaves in [mining] and agriculture on the big farms and building roads and other things right through to the present we continue to contribute in all areas of human life. We have had to fight hard, we Afro-Colombians. Because Colombia is one of the countries in the world that now has wide recognition of the rights of people of African descent. However there is a lack of effective political will in successive governments. And there is a development model based on the extraction and exploitation of natural resources, the state is weak in assuming its obligations on human rights and protecting ethnic, cultural and environmental rights. And added to the internal armed conflict together with other factors mean that rights are not complied with or guaranteed in practice. Afro-Colombians are marginalised by the state and not taken into account in public policies. The treatment of this segment of the population is marked by discrimination, racism and seizing of goods, material and immaterial. There are no criteria in public policy in Colombia for inclusion and non-discrimination. Land rights have been affected by mass displacements confinement, threats in the presence of mega-economic projects, monocultures, port, mining and tourist ventures among others. According to the national register of displaced persons over the last 10 years there were some 142 000 Afro-Colombians in 2005 one some 4 million Afro-descendants in Colombia were recognised as Afro-Colombians who were displaced that is 10 per cent of the total of the displaced population in Colombia in the second national survey it was pointed out that 16.6 per cent of the population who were displaced were Afro-Colombians. This shows that there is a greater impact of displacement among the Afro-Colombian population. This is mainly due to the fact that measures are not implemented to guarantee protection of afro-descendent communities. This leads to loss of land, where not only property is seized but also the right to use land and exploit resources and national and traditional heritage confinement of free movement, disappearance of traditional authorities and economic control of the territory by external legal or illegal factors. We live in a strategic area with great power diversity and a lot of national resources. Displacement in Colombia is not just a result of the war but because of development projects, which enable large-scale projects and mono-culture to thrive. Gold, coal and etc, national transnational roads hydroelectric dams, extensive sugarcane plantations for fuel and palm oil deter, all of these are initiatives that have the support of the state. And this situation arises because there is no respect for FPIC and as ILO Convention 169 and Colombian Constitution establish it, however this is not implemented by the government. We have great difficulties