On November 18, the Seventh Committee approved a bill that establishes norms for the protection of the human rights of social leaders who are part of Community Action Organizations. The Community Action Boards are civil organizations with wide geographical coverage that encourage citizen participation in the management of their communities through dialogue with national, departmental and municipal governments.

In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of threats and attacks against community leaders, a problem that overlaps with the low levels of training, education and incentives for gender policies of the CABs. In addition, they are regularly affected by manipulation, violence, poverty, corruption, lack of inclusive development policies and different types of attacks by political actors.

Faced with this state of affairs, the initiative promoted by the official representative Buenaventura León León (Partido Conservador Colombiano) seeks to strengthen the community action boards so that they can play a more active, inclusive and decisive role in the development of their communities. It must be approved by the plenary of the House of Representatives before passing to the Senate.