Nondiscrimination statutes and their development in Colombia

Abstract

Twenty years after the introduction of the principle of social integration of discriminated groups without questioning the rules that support it, it is necessary to promote another tendency which complements it and motivates the creation of policies for discriminated or marginalized people leveling.

The first obstacle those rules against discrimination should remove is the concept of discrimination which identifies it with arbitrary distinction, exclusion or restriction which object or result, conscious or unconscious, is to damage or remove one person or group human rights and fundamental liberties’ recognition, enjoyment or exercise, in political, labor, social, religious, cultural or civil areas.

According with this perspective, there are two relative new intervention strategies that, although having different origins, have converged progressively. They are the strategy “against discrimination” and the strategy which promotes affirmative action policies. Those strategies conjunction, in other words, the union of policies against discrimination and affirmative actions leads to social integration.