A silent but important problem is taking place in Latin America: the violence against thousands of children younger than 18-years old. In the house, in the school, in the street, in the state institutions, well, everywhere. Family, friends, officials, teachers, and strangers are the ones perpetrating the violence. Although national laws state that the rights of children are prevalent and must in practice prevail, they are not a priority nor really guaranteed.
It seems that we have are used to news about violence against boys and girls. In Mendoza (Argentina), several priests were accused of raping a group of hearing-impaired children at a high school where they were supposed to be protected. In Bogotá (Colombia), a man kidnapped, tortured, raped, and killed a 7-year old girl whose family was displaced by violence. In Mexico, unaccompanied and accompanied migrant children flee to the United States from the threat of being recruited by gangs, and then are later detained, deprived of liberty, and deported.
According to information gathered by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Cepal) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in 2009, forty million children under the age of 15 have been victims of abuse, violence and abandonment in the region. In several countries, the majority of victims of sexual abuse were girls, and often lived with their aggressors.