Child abuse and mistreatment continue to be “serious and constant” crimes in Latin America

It took seven years for Marlén* to find out that her daughter, when she was just five, had experienced a series of intimate touching by one of her nephews – who was four years older than the little girl – causing a “serious” emotional affectation and diagnoses such as “anxiety, a mixed anxiety and depression disorder,” according to the psychiatrist.

“Abuse can happen right under your nose… the enemy can be a member of your family,” Marlén told the Voice of AmericaFor her, it was abuse, but the legislation in her country, she explained, calls it “sexualized play” when they are minors and it cannot be prosecuted.

According to data from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in 2021, one in six girls and one in 10 boys have suffered sexual abuse in Latin American countries and, together with physical punishment, psychological aggression and homicide, these problems “haunt millions of children and adolescents” in the region.

In the case of Marlén’s daughter, the little girl alerted the protection network through a hotline for children set up in Colombia. Today, the 11-year-old girl has been hospitalized four times and has attempted suicide.

However, he is currently undergoing psychiatric and psychological monitoring, with some difficulties in receiving care, as described by his mother, and has turned to art as a therapeutic means.

Currently, they are “on a roller coaster… living one day at a time” and “doing everything possible” to ensure that the girl receives the necessary treatments, Marlén* said.

Abuse, in all its forms, is also a constant in the region. A statistical profile of UNICEF The 2022 report on child violence in Latin America and the Caribbean revealed that nearly two out of three children and adolescents between the ages of 1 and 14 experience violent discipline at home.

Furthermore, 73 million live in countries and territories where corporal punishment in the home is still permitted to some extent.

María Victoria Zambrano Ibarra, a lawyer and representative of victims of the Afecto Association against Child Abuse and who was also a victim of abuse and domestic violence from the age of eight until preadolescence, explained to the VOA It is important to put these issues on the table because this situation “generates consequences at all levels, not only in the short, but also in the medium and long term” and “it is something that children cannot clearly understand in their minds, but rather they suffer from things that they do not understand.”

Zambrano, who is also a member of the Comprehensive Council for the Care of Victims of Sexual Violence, Domestic Violence and Child Sexual Abuse in Colombia, said that in 86% of cases, abuse and mistreatment occur in the family: “That place where children should be safe is the place where it is most committed.” It also occurs in the school environment.

In her case, she experienced abuse from her maternal grandfather, surrounded by an environment of alcoholism and witnessing psychological, emotional and physical violence against her mother, who was widowed early.

First, “childhood sexual abuse made me hate myself,” she told the VOA-. I hated my body, I felt like my green eyes had been a curse and I felt like I was somehow provoking my bullies… that made me hate myself and the whole world.” She even had failed suicide attempts.

An unequal region

Carlos Alberto Montoya Marín, pediatrician and affectologist, and director of the Red Afecto Corporation in the city of Manizales explained to the VOA that in Latin America and the Caribbean, where 188 million girls, boys and adolescents live, there is “a constant of inequalities that lead to a great violation of children’s rights”, a “situation that continues to be very delicate and very serious”, but which is currently “much more visible than before”.

For UNICEF, child violence “is driven not only by negative social and gender norms, but also by other factors such as inequalities, insecurity, migration and humanitarian crises.”

In the region, the UN office says, two in five children live in countries without legal protection against corporal punishment at home, at school and in state-run care facilities.

According to the doctor, it is a region where it is common to see different forms of abuse: physical, school, sexual abuse, pedophilia, child pornography, neglect and abandonment, and where factors such as migration and internal displacement or the lack of basic services and poverty aggravate the problem.

In general, the doctor pointed out, VOA“33 million children in more than 34 countries continue to be subjected to severe and delicate corporal punishment. Of these, seven million children have almost no access to legal protection that would help them defend their rights.”

For Montoya, it is a problem for all nations and in all economic sectors, and it cannot be said that “the most developed country is the one that mistreats the least.” [existe]”, however, he highlighted how the problems in countries such as Venezuela, Panama -in the Darien Gap sector-, Haiti, among others, can aggravate the problem.

The challenges

The lawyer indicated that in Latin America, and particularly in Colombia, there are laws and policies related to the prevention and treatment of child abuse and mistreatment, but with an accusatory criminal system that has physical, human and economic limitations that “in some way become a bottleneck,” impacting the timely attention to justice and the restoration of the rights of these victims.

In the region, the problem is the lack of knowledge and the “inefficient” care and prevention programs for children “that have to do with the detection of mental illness, with improving living conditions, with education in parenting,” he told the VOA Isabel Cuadros, executive director of the Association Afecto contra el Maltrato Infantil, which held an international conference until Wednesday to reflect on the issue and promote good practices in child protection.

According to her, the main challenges in the region are to create a comprehensive public policy: “This has to do with the detection of cases and with primary prevention, which is related to the formation of emotional ties,” as well as with justice reducing the levels of impunity.

UNICEF has urged governments to adopt laws that fully ban corporal punishment in all settings, invest in programmes to prevent violence, including positive parenting programmes, implement social and behavioural change interventions to address the normalisation of violence against children, strengthen the capacity of social services staff and strengthen data collection on violence.

Protective factors

Dr. Montoya insists that this scourge must be prevented from arising during gestation, with protective factors such as affection and family unity, which, according to him, can be fostered early: “So that they are more affectionate, more loving families and, consequently, less abusive.”

For Zambrano, the recovery of victims does not depend solely on the legal issue, but rather “has to do with spiritual strengthening, regardless of the religion they profess… being able to express what you have inside, that pain. Making it into a song, poem, book or painting, a play, allows you to somehow catalyze all those feelings of pain that are experienced.”

In her case, writing, painting and continuing her studies helped her to begin to process everything she had experienced. That is why she now dedicates herself to advising victims of these scourges, after studying law and doing a master’s degree in human rights. In addition, she is certified as a coach and motivational speaker to now help those who lived through the same ordeal that she endured in her childhood.

*The name was modified at the request of the source.

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