Law Against Child Sexual Abuse

The Law Against Child Sexual Abuse in Colombia represents a crucial step in protecting the fundamental rights of the country’s children by establishing preventive and punitive regulations, as well as issuing other provisions in the development of Article 44 of the Constitution. This legislation stands as a legal instrument aimed at preventing, sanctioning, and eradicating any form of sexual abuse affecting minors, thereby ensuring their comprehensive well-being and healthy development.

DEFINITION: For the purposes of this law, a minor is understood as a person who has not yet reached the age of eighteen.

In this context, it is imperative to understand the established legal framework, the guiding principles that direct its application, and the specific measures contemplated to guarantee the effective protection of vulnerable minors against this serious form of violence.

In addition to the infractions provided in Article 71 of Law 300 of 1996, tourism service providers may be subject to administrative sanctions, without prejudice to criminal penalties, when they engage in any of the following behaviors:

• Hosting on their own site images, texts, documents, or audiovisual files that directly or indirectly involve sexual activities with minors.
• Providing tourists with information, by any means, about places where sexual services with minors are coordinated or offered.
• Leading tourists to establishments or locations where child prostitution is practiced.
• Taking minors to places where tourists are staying for the purpose of child prostitution.
• Allowing the entry of minors into hotels or lodging establishments, bars, similar businesses, and other tourist establishments with the intention of prostitution or sexual abuse of minors.

Without prejudice to the legal obligation to report, which applies to all residents in Colombia, providers, administrators, and users of global information networks must:

1. Report to the competent authorities any criminal act against minors of which they are aware, including the dissemination of pornographic material involving minors.
2. Combat by all technical means within their reach the dissemination of pornographic material involving minors.
3. Refrain from using global information networks to distribute illegal material involving minors.
4. Establish technical blocking mechanisms through which users can protect themselves or their children from illegal, offensive, or undesirable material related to minors.