Land restitution, housing policy, and productive projects: Ideas for the post-agreement period
Aura Bolívar Jaime, Angie Paola Botero Giraldo, | October 10, 2017
This document aims to examine the results of the land restitution process, with emphasis on its articulation with housing and income generation policies, central components that restitution and return require in order to guarantee victims decent living conditions in terms of livability and economic sustainability.
This document intends to examine the results of the land restitution process, emphasizing its articulation with housing and income generation policies, central components that restitution and return require in order to guarantee victims decent living conditions in terms of livability and economic sustainability. The Constitutional Court has recognized this through multiple sentences pointing out that it is the State’s duty to provide victims with special, preferential, and priority treatment, particularly with respect to the fundamental right to decent housing and the implementation of directed policies to generate conditions of economic sustainability. All of this, taking into account that the crime of displacement means the forced abandonment of the place of residence and the loss of conditions to self-sustain. As a result, this document is based on the thesis that the sustainability of the restitution process depends on the implementation, articulation and complementarity of this policy with other efforts aimed at promoting conditions for the return of the victims and their reintegration into productive life in the countryside, without which it would be impossible to guarantee return in dignified and lasting conditions and achieve economic development and democratic social inclusion.
This does not necessarily require the existence of public policies exclusively designed for the victims, but rather the formulation of social policies that are sufficiently comprehensive and flexible to adapt to the needs and demands that the care and protection of the victim population requires. In this sense, our reflections are an input to identify the possible adjustments required by this policy, an urgent task taking into account the temporality of the law and the possible implementation of the peace agreement with the FARC, which has established as one of its objectives to strengthen and streamline the processes of land restitution in an end-of-conflict scenario.
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