🗞️ The government has reformulated its referendum proposal and re-submitted 16 questions to the Senate, following the defeat of the last proposal earlier this month.
Along with many of the questions previously submitted regarding labour reform, four new questions have been added regarding the health system.
The labour reform proposals include recognition of informal and community labour, better allowances for medical and menstrual leave, regulation of the digital gig economy, and extension of definitions and remuneration of night shifts and overtime.
The new questions propose to reform medication access and pricing, and to transform Colombia’s health providers (EPS)– currently functioning under an insurance-based system – and remove their function as financial intermediaries.
The new proposals regarding the health system echo the central tenets of the government’s health reform bill, which was rejected earlier this year.
Scroll to the bottom for full translated list of questions
These 16 questions, if approved by the Senate and then by public vote at a referendum later this year, will be expedited into law.
Opinion polls published this month suggested strong approval for the labour reform provisions, though the health reform has not generally enjoyed such strong public support.
Simultaneously, the labour reform bill was revived by the Senate last week and has been debated over the subsequent days, with a positive report supported by the majority of the committee due today.
However, this bill is considered so watered down that trade unions have withdrawn support, supporting instead the referendum mechanism to achieve reform. A senator from President Gustavo Petro’s political party meanwhile, will also submit an alternative draft for debate, closer in nature to the original bill.
Last week, Petro called for a national strike to support his referendum, to be held this Wednesday and Thursday, supported by the trade unions. The police have announced a force of more than 36,000 officers to be deployed around the demonstrations.
🗞️ The murder of a Colombian influencer has hit international headlines this week:22-year-old María José Estupiñán - who went by the name ‘La Mona’ on social media - was shot dead by a man posing as a delivery man in Cúcuta, Norte de Santander.
The day before the murder, a local court had ruled against Estupiñán’s former partner in a domestic violence case, awarding her compensation. Local police told the press that Estupiñán had suffered stalking and physical violence at the hands of the former partner who had continued to harass her. The murder is being investigated as a femicide.
The number of reported femicides in Colombia - the huge majority of which do not hit the headlines - has been on the rise: the Colombian Observatory of Femicides reported 886 cases in 2024 - a seven-year high. In the first three months of this year, the group reported 207 femicides.
Femicides, though the most extreme manifestation of intimate partner violence and misogyny, are only the tip of the iceberg: though physical and emotional abuse are significantly under-reported and under-represented in statistics, Colombia’s Ministry of Justice reported record-breaking numbers of cases last year.
Also this week, three women visiting Genova, in the department of Quindió, suffered an acid attack: two men passing on a motorbike threw liquid over them as they walked down the street.
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