La lucha contra el racismo en Colombia: la discriminación racial en los entornos laborales

In 2018, the Colombian Constitutional Court ruled the first case of racial discrimination at work,  setting a legal precedent that forces companies to combat racial discrimination. After 5 years of litigation, the Constitutional Court in ruling T-572/17 recognized that: 

(i) Workplace harassment between coworkers and pointed out that inappropriate expressions between coworkers constitute workplace harassment. 

(ii) It is the duty of private firms to prevent and reject this type of conduct, not only companies have to comply with the workplace harassment law, but they must have effective and efficient mechanisms to combat these situations and 

(iii) The Ministry of Labor has the obligation to create a methodology to process these cases, manage complaints of racial discrimination and provide a substantive response to these situations.

However, although this ruling is a precedent for all ethnic peoples in Colombia, for John Jak Becerra, the plaintiff of this case, this ruling implied additional obstacles to looking for work. During this faculty Working Group, John Jak Becerra, will discuss labor discrimination based on race in Colomba. He will presents his case discuss the different strategies and methodologies used to monitor the case, the lack of knowledge of the rules against racial discrimination, and delve into the challenges that persist in the workplace for various ethnic groups  in Colombia.

Moderator: Diana Alejandra Quigua.

Diana Alejandra is an indigenous person from the Kubeo del Vaupés people in the Colombian Amazon. She is a lawyer and candidate for a Magister in Constitutional Law, she is an activist for women's rights and a researcher for the Ethnic Racial Justice line at the Center for Law, Justice and Society -Dejusticia. There she focuses on investigating issues related to territorial rights, self-righteousness and the rights of the victims of indigenous peoples.

Panelist: David Murillo Mosquera

David is  an Afro-Colombian professional in Government and International Relations from the Externado de Colombia University and a Master's in Management for Development. He was a researcher for Dejusticia's Racial Ethnic Justice line. He carried out the accompaniment of the case of Jon Jak Becerra, the first case on racial discrimination in the workplace that was ruled by the Constitutional Court. He is currently studying at Georgetown University in the United States and serves as an independent consultant in Racial Ethnic Justice.

Commentator: John Jak Becerra

John Jak Becerra Palacios, is Afro-Bogotano and anti-racist. He came to live in Quibdó Chocó at the age of 9 and returned to the city of Bogotá in 2000. He Plaintiff along with Dejusticia de la Acción de Tutela that was ruled through sentence T-572-17 on racial discrimination in the work environment.

The Faculty Working Group is part of the larger Colombian Studies Initiative: Past, Present, and Futures. This is a collaboration between NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS) and Universidad del Rosario, in Colombia. The Initiative aims to create an Inter-American hub for research, multidisciplinary conversations and exchange of knowledge concerning Colombia. It supports dialogue, inquiry, and research for US, Colombian, and international scholars, students, NGOs practitioners, and the general public interested in Colombia. 

This event will be held in Spanish.