Fingerprints in a police station. At the same time, the NHRI can use its new monitoring powers as NPM to conduct unannounced visits to police stations, where it can see directly how safeguards – including access to family – are implemented in practice.
The Association for the Prevention of Torture (APT) welcomes Colombia’s recent accession, on 10 November 2025, to the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT). With this step, 15 countries in Latin America have now ratified this key instrument for strengthening the protection of human rights. El Salvador and Venezuela have yet to do so. It highlights the region’s strong commitment to developing and strengthening independent mechanisms for the prevention of torture and ill-treatment.
Colombia’s ratification of the OPCAT represents a historic opportunity to transform monitoring practices and reinforce transparency across all places of deprivation of liberty: prisons, police stations, immigration detention centres, psychiatric hospitals, and any setting where the State exercises control over persons.
A Path built with persistence
Colombia’s accession did not take place overnight. It is the result of years of commitment, public debate, legislative proposals and institutional efforts aimed at building a stronger and more effective preventive model. The APT implemented advocacy missions since 2013—and even earlier to promote multisectoral dialogue.
The APT recognises the work of local organisations, public institutions and international agencies that contributed to this process over the years. This collective achievement reaffirms that preventing torture is only possible through sustained cooperation and political will.
Models of Preventive Mechanisms in Latin America
Latin America has developed a diverse range of National and Local Preventive Mechanisms (NPMs/LPMs), demonstrating how each country has adapted the OPCAT to its own institutional context.
NPMs integrated within National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs)
Several countries have designated their Human Rights Ombudspersons or similar institutions as NPMs, drawing on their monitoring experience and existing institutional frameworks.
This model benefits from using established structures to ensure swift and effective responses.
These are the cases of: Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru and Uruguay.
Separate, stand-alone mechanisms
Other countries, like Honduras and Paraguay, have created entirely new institutions, specifically designed and fully independent from the branches of the State.
These mechanisms possess their own structures, clear mandates and administrative and financial autonomy, which reinforce their independence.
NPMs adapted to federal systems
In federal countries such as Argentina and Brazil, NPMs use models that link federal and local levels, enabling the monitoring of a wide range of detention settings and the coordination of preventive action across complex state structures.
The Latin American experience shows that there is no single model. What is essential is ensuring independence, unrestricted access, technical capacity and ongoing dialogue with relevant institutions.
A message for the future
Colombia’s accession to the OPCAT marks a turning point and sends a strong message at a time when challenges related to deprivation of liberty have intensified throughout the region. Effective prevention requires robust mechanisms, trustworthy institutions and an active civil society.
The APT encourages Colombia to continue advancing towards the designation and strengthening of its future Mechanism, ensuring the resources, independence and institutional support needed for this new body to fulfil its preventive mandate in all places of detention.
We also encourage the countries that have not yet ratified the OPCAT to join this regional effort. The prevention of torture cannot be achieved through legislation alone: it requires political will, inter-institutional cooperation and a sustained commitment to human dignity.
The task ahead is to build, step by step, a preventive monitoring system that honours the spirit of the OPCAT: to protect human dignity and to ensure that no person, in any place of detention, is subjected to torture or ill-treatment.
Find out more about the OPCAT implementation in the world here: https://www.apt.ch/knowledge-hub/opcat
