Colombia’s peace efforts will not bear fruit while the Andean country is divided by social and economic strata comparable to India’s caste system, a United Nations envoy said.
Colombia’s government classifies households into six economic strata, with those in richer neighborhoods paying more for utilities to subsidize people living in poorer communities.
The aims of such a system may be noble, but the result is social segregation and the entrenchment of poverty, Olivier De Schutter, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, told Reuters in Bogota, as his latest report on Colombia was published on Wednesday.