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Colombia
Summary of Domestic Prohibition
Slavery and slave trade
Provisions related to slavery are found in the 1991 Constitution at article 17 which prohibits slavery and the slave trade in all its forms. Article 141A of the Penal Code criminalises sexual slavery of protected persons in the context of an armed conflict. Slavery as an element of trafficking in persons is also criminalised under article 188A of the Penal Code.
Practices similar to slavery and servitude
There appears to be no legislation in place in Colombia which prohibits institutions and practices similar to slavery, although they may be an element of trafficking in persons under article 188A of the Penal Code.
Servitude
Provisions related to servitude are found in the 1991 Constitution at article 17 which prohibits servitude. Servitude may also form an element of trafficking in persons, criminalised under article 188A of the Penal Code.
Forced or compulsory labour
There appears to be no legislation in place in Colombia which prohibits forced labour, although forced labour may form an element of trafficking in persons, criminalised under article 188A of the Penal Code.
Human trafficking
Provisions related to trafficking in persons are found in the Penal Code at article 188A which criminalises trafficking in persons within the country or from abroad.
Forced marriage
Provisions related to forced marriage in Colombia are found in the 1887 Civil Code, which addresses the lack of consent when a marriage is contracted by force or fear at Article 140, whether the force is caused by the one who wants to marry or by someone else. Article 140 also addresses the lack of freedom in the woman’s consent, due to abduction.
Consent to marriage
Provisions requiring consent to marriage in Colombia are found in the Civil code 1887, article 115 of which states that the marriage contract is constituted and perfected by the free and mutual consent of the contracting parties, expressed before the competent official, in the manner and with the solemnities and requirements established in this Code, and will not produce civil and political effects, if its celebration is contravenes such forms, solemnities and requirements. Article 140(3) further recognises that the consent of a party or prospective party to a marriage is invalidated where the person is subjected to coercion.
Servile marriage
There appears to be no legislation in Colombia that prohibits servile matrimonial transactions.
Marriage trafficking
Provisions related to marriage trafficking in Colombia are found in the Penal Code 2020, which prohibits trafficking for practices similar to slavery at Article 188A, modified by article 3, Law 985 of 2005 with a potential penalty of imprisonment from thirteen (13) to twenty-three (23) years and a fine of eight hundred (800) to one thousand five hundred (1,500) minimum wages current monthly legal regulations.
Minimum age for marriage
The minimum age for marriage in Colombia is 18, without differentiation by gender, as set out on Article 116 of the 1887 Civil Code. Where marriages are conducted involving a person below the minimum age, the marriage is null and void, as set out on Article 140 of the 1887 Civil Code. However, marriages below this age are permitted with the express permission of their parents, as set out on Article 117 of the 1887 Civil Code. These exceptions are not differentiated by gender.
Region
Latin America and Caribbean
Regional Court
Inter-American Court of Human Rights
Legal System
Civil
International Instruments
International Obligations
- Slavery
- Servitude
- Forced Labour
- Human Trafficking
- Marriage Trafficking
Regional Organisations
- Inter-American Court of Human Rights
- Organisation of American States
Legislative Provisions
CONSTITUTION OF COLOMBIA 1991 (REV. 2015)
Article 17.
Slavery, servitude, and the slave trade in all forms are prohibited.
Article 43
Women and men have equal rights and opportunities. Women cannot be subjected to any type of discrimination. During their periods of pregnancy and following delivery, women shall benefit from the special assistance and protection of the State and shall receive from the latter food subsidies if they should thereafter find themselves unemployed or abandoned.
The State shall support the female head of household in a special way.
Article 44.
The following are basic rights of children: life, physical integrity, health and social security, a balanced diet, their name and citizenship, to have a family and not be separated from it, care and love, instruction and culture, recreation, and the free expression of their opinions. They will be protected against all forms of abandonment, physical or moral violence, imprisonment, sale, sexual abuse, work or economic exploitation, and dangerous work. They will also enjoy other rights upheld in the Constitution, the laws, and international treaties ratified by Colombia.
Article 53
The Congress shall issue a labor statute. The appropriate law shall take into account at least the following minimal fundamental principles:
Equality of opportunity for workers; minimum essential and flexible remuneration proportional to the amount and quality of work; stability in employment; irrevocability of minimum benefits established in labor regulations; options to negotiate about and reconcile uncertain and arguable rights; a situation more favorable to the worker in case of doubt in the application and interpretation of the formal bases of the law; the primacy of facts over established formalities in issues of labor relations; guarantees to social security, training, instruction, and necessary rest; special protection of women, mothers, and minor-age workers.
The State guarantees the right of suitable payment and the periodic adjustment of legal retirement benefits.
International labor agreements duly ratified are part of domestic legislation.
Statute, contracts, agreements, and labor settlements may not infringe on the freedom, human dignity, or rights of workers.
PENAL CODE
Article 2. Integration
Norms and human rights principles that are found inscribed in the Constitution, treaties and conventions international ratified by Colombia, made an integral part of this code.
Article 141 Forced Prostitution of a protected person
Anyone who, on the occasion and in the course of the armed conflict, forces a protected person to provide sexual services shall be imprisoned for one hundred and sixty (160) to three hundred and twenty-four (324) months and fined from six hundred and sixty-six point sixty-six (666.66) to one thousand and five hundred (1,500) times the current monthly legal minimum wage.
Article 141A. Sexual Slavery of Protected Persons
Anyone who, on the occasion and in the course of the armed conflict, exercises one of the attributes of the right to property by means of violence against a protected person so that he or she performs one or more acts of a sexual nature shall be imprisoned for one hundred and sixty (160) to three hundred and twenty-four (324) months and fined from six hundred and sixty-six point sixty-six (666.66) to one thousand and five hundred (1,500) times the current monthly legal minimum wage.
Article 141B. Trafficking in protected persons for the purpose of sexual exploitation
Anyone who, on the occasion and in the course of the armed conflict, captures, transfers, harbours or receives a protected person within the national territory or abroad, for the purpose of sexual exploitation, shall incur a prison term of one hundred and fifty-six (156) to two hundred and seventy-six (276) months and a fine of eight hundred (800) to one thousand five hundred (1,500) times the current monthly legal minimum wage.
For the purposes of this article, exploitation of a sexual nature shall mean obtaining economic advantage or any other benefit for oneself or another person through the exploitation of the prostitution of others, sexual slavery, servile marriage, sex tourism or any other form of sexual exploitation.
Article 188A Trafficking
He who captures, transfers, harbors or receives a person, within the country or from abroad for exploitation liable to imprisonment of thirteen (13) to twenty (23) years and a fine of eight hundred (800) to 1500 (1,500) monthly legal minimum wages.
For purposes of this Article shall mean the economic advantage obtained exploitation or any other benefit for himself or for another person, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices slavery, servitude, exploitation of begging of others, servile marriage, the removal of organs, sex tourism and other forms of exploitation.
The consent of a victim of any form of exploitation defined in this Article shall not constitute grounds for exemption from criminal responsibility.
Article 188-B. Circumstances of punitive aggravation
The penalties for the offences described in Article 188 and 188-A, shall be increased from one third to one half, when
- When the offence is committed on a person who is suffering from psychological immaturity, mental disorder, mental derangement and mental disorder, temporarily or permanently, or is under 18 years of age.
- As a result, the victim is affected in permanent physical damage and/or psychological injury, mental immaturity, mental disorder on a temporary or permanent basis or permanent damage to health.
- The liable party is the spouse or permanent partner or relative up to the third degree of consanguinity, second degree of affinity and first degree of civil law.
- The perpetrator or participant is a public servant.
When the conduct described in articles 188 and 188-A is carried out on a minor under twelve (12) years of age, the penalty shall be increased by half.
Article 188C. Trafficking in children and adolescents.
Anyone who takes part in any act or transaction by virtue of which a child or adolescent is sold, delivered or trafficked for cash or any other consideration to a person or group of persons shall be liable to imprisonment for thirty (30) to sixty (60) years and a fine of one thousand (1,000) to two thousand (2,000) times the current legal monthly minimum wage. The consent given by the victim or his parents, or representatives or caretakers shall not constitute grounds for exoneration or a circumstance of punitive mitigation of criminal liability. The penalty described in the first subparagraph shall be increased by one third to one half, when:
- The victim is affected physically or mentally, or with mental immaturity or mental disorder, temporarily or permanently;
- The person responsible is a relative up to the third degree of consanguinity, second degree of affinity and first civil degree of the child or adolescent;
- The perpetrator or participant is a public official who provides health services or health professionals, domestic service and day care centres;
- The author or participant is a person whose function is the protection and comprehensive care of the child.
Article 214. Constraint on prostitution
Whoever, with the intention of profiting or to satisfy the desires of another, compels any person to engage in carnal trade or prostitution, shall be imprisoned from nine (9) to thirteen (13) years and fined from sixty-six (66) to seven hundred and fifty (750) times the current legal monthly minimum wage
CONSTITUTION OF COLOMBIA 1991 (REV. 2015)
Article 42
The family is the basic nucleus of society. It is formed on the basis of natural or legal ties, through the free decision of a man and woman to contract matrimony or through the responsible resolve to comply with it.
The state and society guarantee the integral protection of the family. An Act shall determine the inalienable and unseizable family patrimony. The family’s honor, dignity, and intimacy are inviolable.
Family relations are based on the equality of rights and duties of the couple and on the reciprocal respect of all its members. Any form of violence in the family is considered destructive of its harmony and unity, and shall be sanctioned according to law.
The children born of matrimony or outside it, adopted or conceived naturally or with scientific assistance, have equal rights and duties. An Act shall regulate responsibility to the offspring.
The couple has the right to decide freely and responsibly the number of their children and shall support them and educate them while they are minors or non-self-supporting.
The forms of marriage, the age and qualifications to contract it, the duties and rights of the spouses, their separation and the dissolution of the marriage ties are determined by statute.
The civil effects of all marriages may be terminated by divorce in accordance with civil law.
Also having civil effects are decrees of annulment of religious marriages issued by the authorities of the respective faiths within the limits established by statute.
An Act shall determine matters relating to the civil status of individuals and consequent rights and duties.
Constitution of Colombia 1991 (REV 2015) – Constitute Project – English (PDF)
Constitution of Colombia 1991 (REV 2011) – NATLEX – Spanish (PDF)
PENAL CODE 2000 (REV 2019)
Article 141B. Trafficking in protected persons for the purpose of sexual exploitation
Anyone who, on the occasion and in the course of the armed conflict, captures, transfers, harbours or receives a protected person within the national territory or abroad, for the purpose of sexual exploitation, shall incur a prison term of one hundred and fifty-six (156) to two hundred and seventy-six (276) months and a fine of eight hundred (800) to one thousand five hundred (1,500) times the current monthly legal minimum wage.
For the purposes of this article, exploitation of a sexual nature shall mean obtaining economic advantage or any other benefit for oneself or another person through the exploitation of the prostitution of others, sexual slavery, servile marriage, sex tourism or any other form of sexual exploitation.
Article 188A Trafficking
He who captures, transfers, harbors or receives a person, within the country or from abroad for exploitation liable to imprisonment of thirteen (13) to twenty (23) years and a fine of eight hundred (800) to 1500 (1,500) monthly legal minimum wages.
For purposes of this Article shall mean the economic advantage obtained exploitation or any other benefit for himself or for another person, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices slavery, servitude, exploitation of begging of others, servile marriage, the removal of organs, sex tourism and other forms of exploitation.
The consent of a victim of any form of exploitation defined in this Article shall not constitute grounds for exemption from criminal responsibility.
Article 188-B. Circumstances of punitive aggravation
The penalties for the offences described in Article 188 and 188-A, shall be increased from one third to one half, when
- When the offence is committed on a person who is suffering from psychological immaturity, mental disorder, mental derangement and mental disorder, temporarily or permanently, or is under 18 years of age.
- As a result, the victim is affected in permanent physical damage and/or psychological injury, mental immaturity, mental disorder on a temporary or permanent basis or permanent damage to health.
- The liable party is the spouse or permanent partner or relative up to the third degree of consanguinity, second degree of affinity and first degree of civil law.
- The perpetrator or participant is a public servant.
PARAGRAPH: When the conduct described in articles 188 and 188-A is carried out on a minor under twelve (12) years of age, the penalty shall be increased by half.
CIVIL CODE 1887
ARTICLE 113 DEFINITION
Marriage is a solemn contract by which a man and a woman are united in order to live together, to procreate and to help each other.
ARTICLE 115 CONSTITUTION and PERFECTION of MARRIAGE
The marriage contract is constituted and perfected by the free and mutual consent of the contracting parties, expressed before the competent official, in the manner and with the solemnities and requirements established in this Code, and will not produce civil and political effects, if its celebration is contravenes such forms, solemnities and requirements.
Marriages celebrated in accordance with the canons or rules of any religious confession or church that have signed a concordat or treaty of international law or an agreement of internal public law with the Colombian State will have full legal effects.
The agreements referred to in the preceding paragraph may only be celebrated by religious confessions and churches that have legal status, are registered in the registry of religious entities of the Ministry of Government, certify that they have provisions on the matrimonial regime that are not contrary to the Constitution and guarantee the seriousness and continuity of its religious organization.
Such instruments shall guarantee full respect for fundamental constitutional rights.
ARTICLE 116 CAPACITY TO CONTRACT MARRIAGE
People over 18 years of age can freely marry.
ARTICLE 117 PERMISSION FOR THE MARRIAGE of MINORS
Minors of the stated age cannot marry without the express permission, in writing, of their legitimate or natural parents. If any of them has died, or is prevented from granting this permission, the consent of the other will suffice; and if they disagree, the will of the father shall prevail in any case.
In the same terms of this article, the consent of the adopting father and mother is required for the marriage of the adoptive son, under twenty-one years of age, or of the adoptive daughter, under eighteen.
ARTICLE 118 PARENTAL ABSENCE
It will be understood that the father or mother and another ancestor are absent, not only because they have died, but also because they are insane or fatuous; or because he is absent from the national territory, and his soon return is not expected; or by ignoring the place of his residence.
ARTICLE 120 CONSENT of the CONSENT
In the absence of said father, mother or ancestors, the one who has not reached the age will need the consent of his general curator, or failing that, that of a special curator.
ARTICLE 122 REASONS for the REFUSAL of the CURATOR
The reasons that justify the curator’s dissent may not be other than these:
1a) The existence of any legal impediment.
2a) Failure to carry out any of the procedures prescribed in title 8. Of the second nuptials, if any.
3a) Serious danger to the health of the minor to whom the license is denied, or of the offspring.
4th) Licentious life, immoderate passion for gambling, habitual drunkenness of the person with whom the minor wishes to marry.
5a) That person is suffering the sentence of imprisonment.
6a) Not having any of the spouses, current means for the competent performance of the obligations of marriage.
ARTICLE 123 ABSENCE of CONSENT
The marriage may not proceed without the consent of the person or persons whose consent is necessary, according to the preceding articles, or without establishing that the respective contracting party can marry freely.
ARTICLE 124 DISINHERITATION BY MARRIAGE WITHOUT CONSENT
He who, having not reached the age, marries without the consent of an ascendant, being obliged to obtain it, may be disinherited not only by the one or those whose consent was necessary, but by all other ascendants.
ARTICLE 138 CONSENT
The consent of the spouses must be pronounced in a perceptible voice, without mistakes, and by the same parties, or manifested by signals that leave no doubt.
ARTICLE 140 GROUNDS for NULLITY
The marriage is null and void in the following cases:
1st) When there has been an error about the persons of both contracting parties or that of one of them.
2nd), or when either of the two is respectively younger than that age.
3o) When the consent of one of the contracting parties or both has been lacking to celebrate it. The law presumes lack of consent in the furious madmen, while they remain insane, and in the fools who have been imposed judicial interdiction for the management of their property. But the deaf-mute, if they can clearly express their consent by manifest signs, they will validly contract marriage.
4) repealed
5o) When it has been contracted by force or fear that are sufficient to force someone to act without freedom; Whether the force is caused by the one who wants to marry or by someone else. Force or fear will not be the cause of the nullity of the marriage, if after the force dissipates, the marriage is ratified with express words, or by the sole cohabitation of the consorts.
6th) When there has been no freedom in the woman’s consent, for having been violently stolen, unless she consents to it, being out of the power of the abductor.
7th) Constitutional Court – Numeral declared INEXEQUIBLE by the Constitutional Court by Sentence C-082-99 of February 17, 1999 Speaker Magistrate Dr. Carlos Gaviria Díaz.
8th) When one of the contracting parties has killed or had the spouse with whom he was united in a previous marriage.
Constitutional Court – Numeral declared EXEQUIBLE by the Constitutional Court by Sentence C-271-03 of April 1, 2003, Judge Speaker Dr. Rodrigo Escobar Gil, “conditional on it being understood that the nullity of the civil marriage by conjugicide is configured when both spouses have participated in the homicide and their responsibility for intentional homicide has been established by means of a final conviction; or also, when only one spouse has participated, the innocent spouse proceeds to allege the cause of nullity within the three months following the moment in which learned of the conviction. “
9o) When the contracting parties are in the same line of ascendants and descendants or are brothers.
10) repealed
11) When it has been contracted between the adoptive father and the adoptive daughter; or between the adoptive child and the adopting mother, or the woman who was the adopter’s wife.
13 and 14) repealed