Ecuador is the most insecure country in Latin America, according to Gallup

An overwhelming percentage of 64% of Ecuadorians say they feel unsafe in their country, compared to 35% who do not see a problem in public safety, according to a report presented this Friday by the CID Gallup pollster that ranks Ecuador as the most insecure in Latin America.

The survey carried out at the end of 2022 indicates that along with the climate of insecurity, Ecuadorians also lose confidence in the police and the justice system. The drop is considerable when comparing that in 2022 only 41% have full confidence in law enforcement, and 24% trust in the judicial system.

Between 2011 and 2021, the same pollster averaged 60% of citizen trust in the police and justice. And until five years ago, 52% of the population said they felt safe.

“Ecuador’s status as the least safe country in Latin America in 2022 was no easy feat in a region where countries are routinely ranked among the least safe in the world,” Gallup said in a statement.

Gallup’s research consultant in Ecuador, Gerver Torres, comments to the voice of america that the result of this investigation taken from a sample of surveys at the national level is very revealing and responds to citizen perceptions that are corroborated by acts of violence that take place in the country.

Torres says that it is striking that Ecuador move to Venezuela who held that position of citizen insecurity for years, “and this is serious,” he says.

“According to this data, Ecuador is the country where people feel most insecure walking at night in their area of ​​residence (…) the perception itself is extremely important regardless of how much it reflects reality, but in the case of Ecuador there are facts that help explain this perception”, he says.

Government defends actions

In its recent visit to Washington President Guillermo Lasso told representatives of analysis centers in the US capital that his government is working to better communicate to the public, including to understand the phenomenon of insecurity, which they have understood to be motivated by the actions of organized crime.

“Today the vast majority of Ecuadorians are aware that violence is derived from drug trafficking and organized crime,” which is worrisome, he said, but direct the plans of the security establishment to combat this scourge, he added.

In 2022, the country suffered successive Monins in prisons of the country with hundreds of deaths; Police officers have also been killed, drug cartels continue to dispute territory, where Lasso believes that transnational crime groups from Mexico and Brazil have an influence.

“They participate in the drug business and money laundering, but not in violence, that is put in place by the locals,” said the president.

According to findings from international organizations such as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Ecuador has become a new “nerve center in the world drug trade,” and is even considered one of the world’s leading cocaine producers. on a par with Colombia and Peru. Some internal dynamics allowed the country for a long time to “limit exposure to the effects of international drug trafficking.”

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