On February 28th, an act of homage to Sandra Catalina Vásquez Guzmán, “La Siempreviva” will take place after 29 years of a heinous crime against her, committed in the Germania Police Station, where Sandra Catalina, 9 years old, was raped, tortured and murdered.
The tribute to Sandra Catalina will take place from 3:00 p.m. at the environmental axis: Cra 1° No. 19 A, Germania Park, in front of the Universidad de los Andes. On the same day at 10:30 a.m. this university institution calls for a Memorial Tree Planting in her memory.
These commemorations “are exercises of collective memory, which repair in the symbolic field, the deep damage caused by these irrational acts against life; it is a way to insist to society and the State on the guarantee of non-repetition and the co-responsibility of all in the protection of the lives of our children and young people,” says the family.
On the day of the incident, Sandra Catalina went in looking for her father, Pedro Vásquez, who worked at the police station, while her mother, Sandra Guzmán, waited for her outside. After some time passed without hearing from her, she entered the same place and found her lifeless in one of the bathrooms, with signs of torture and sexual violence.
Initially her father was blamed, but after three years of investigation, in which DNA tests were performed on the 140 agents who were at the day and place of the events, it was determined that another member of the police was responsible for these crimes. For Sandra’s family it is still inexplicable that despite the fact that several uniformed officers were present at the station, only Diego Fernando Valencia Blandón was convicted, who confessed before the Prosecutor’s Office to committing the crime, and that the justice system has not continued with the criminal investigations to establish the responsibility of other officers and superiors who were present at the station that day.
Police officer Diego Fernando Valencia Blandón was sentenced to 45 years for aggravated homicide and violent carnal access, but after 10 years of serving his sentence, the 50th Criminal Court granted him a sentence reduction benefit, due to a legislative change after the conviction, thus allowing his release.
On the other hand, and after years of dealing with pain and impunity, Sandra Catalina’s family decided to file an administrative lawsuit for the State’s responsibility in the crime, which is why, despite the case having been detained for many years, the Council of State ruled in 2016 in favor of the family.
It is for this reason that Sandra Catalina’s life is remembered every year, through acts of remembrance that aim to vindicate the role of the victims in the search for justice for the cases perpetrated by the security forces and for all sexually abused children.
According to Lina María Arbeláez, director of the ICBF, as of September 2021, 9,927 cases of sexual violence against minors had been opened by this entity.
The case of Sandra Catalina speaks to us even today of a precarious justice for women and girls that from time to time is shaken when the media agenda manages to install the concern in society, as also happened with the cases of Yuliana Samboní in 2017, the case of the 14 year old girl belonging to the Embera ethnic group, abused by military personnel in the department of Risaralda in 2020 for which 6 members of the Army were convicted (See here the details of the case), or the recent case of Sarai Colmenares, a 12-year-old Venezuelan girl, raped, tortured and murdered in the city of Pereira (See here the reconstruction of the case, by El Espectador). Meanwhile, the State continues to demonstrate a lack of effectiveness and political will to prevent, confront and punish violence against women and girls.
From the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers Collective we accompany and invite you to join us. Likewise, we extend our fraternal greetings to Sandra Yaneth Guzmán, mother of Sandra Catalina, and express our solidarity with all victims of sexual abuse, and we will continue to contribute from our work to the demand for the full realization of the human rights of all women and girls.
