Human rights groups have asked the European Union to reject a free trade pact with Colombia citing the country’s continued human rights violations as the reason, reported Radio Caracol Wednesday.
The Secretary of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), Wolfgang Kaleck, said that it would send an “incredibly wrong signal” for the E.U. to implement the treaty.
The ECCHR are among a number of Human Rights activists and European Institutions who say that Colombia are in breach of human rights laws by denying freedom of association to work unions.
In a recent report, the ECCHR revealed that over the last 30 years almost 3,000 trade unionists have been murdered in Colombia. It also states that 77% of attacks go unpunished, often without even identifying suspected perpetrators.
While another report by the International Trade Union Confederation showed that Colombia is the most dangerous country in the world for unionist workers. The document showed that in 2011 at least 29 union workers were killed in the country on account of their union work.
The European Parliament in June approved a resolution stating Colombia must improve its human and labor rights situation before it would pass the pending FTA.