The Office of the Ombudsman will hold public hearings to follow up complaints and to speed up the processes of abuse, mistreatment and sexual harassment of Colombian athletes. These exercises of the entity will be carried out in several municipalities and departments of the country.
The announcement was made by the Ombudsman, Carlos Camargo, who stated that “we all have to join forces with a common purpose: that this investigation is achieved. On the one hand, to be carried out by the competent body. On the other hand, it also seeks to strengthen public policy that benefits the national sports system, as well as the main beneficiaries such as women athletes”.
This process of accompanying victims by the entity is supported by Olympic champion Katerine Ibargüen, who said that, “these are the first steps taken to ensure that girls feel a support, because they often do not report because they feel alone. So, now with the Ombudsman's Office we have to do a great job for this and that it really has a precedent,” said the medalist in London 2012 and Rio 2016.
The main objective of the Ombudsman's Office with the holding of these tables is to promote denunciation and end the fear of the victims. Today, this entity is already participating in an inter-institutional round table together with the Office of the Prosecutor, the Office of the Prosecutor, the Ministry of Sport, the ICBF, in order to articulate actions to ensure the guarantee of the rights of several women, young people, adolescents and girls who report having been victims of sexual violence.
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For her part, the coach of Colombian athletes Marcela Suárez supported this institutional initiative, “you can see all the support of people to help them, because they really need it. They are girls who are psychologically affected, they are girls who want to follow the sport but the fear of facing and continuing to face all those things does not leave them”, he said.
According to figures from the Ministry of Sport, from March 2020 to date there have been 17 cases of complaints about sexual abuse of women athletes throughout the country. Minister Guillermo Herrera acknowledged that this issue is “absolutely worrying, it is part of a culture of abuse and gender inequality in some disciplines. We must educate, inform and prevent,” he said.
On the other hand, the Prosecutor's Office appointed a prosecutor attached to the unit of the Comprehensive Care Center for Victims of Sexual Abuse, who issued court orders to investigate whether there are more victims and thus investigate the reported events. According to data provided by Medicina Legal, between 2020 and 2021 there were 36,385 cases of sexual abuse. Of these, 31,532 were against women, that is 86.6 percent.
On the other hand, the Office of the Ombudsman assured that it is necessary to expedite the procedure to reform Law 181 of 1995. This translates into the fact that the national Government was asked, through the Ministry of Sport, for sport to be considered as a profession in the country, in order to ensure better socio-economic opportunities for national athletes.
“It is essential that the country understands the important role that sport plays in transforming social reality,” said Carlos Camargo, the Ombudsman. In the opinion of the official, this is a law that is in arrears of reform given the new institutional framework that has been consolidated in recent years.
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