Panama: Demonstrations Demanding Sanctions for Children Abuse

After the scandal evidenced in the country at the beginning of 2021, the Panamanian Public Prosecutor´s Office witnessed demonstrations demanding sanctions for those implicated in child abuse in transit homes.

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Rebeca Yanis, a representative of the movement Pro Defensa de la Niñez y la Adolescencia,  called the prosecutor in charge, Javier Caraballo, to resign if he is not able to get any results in the pertinent investigations.

A note was handed to the institution, where demonstrators indicated that about 28 processes carried already, from which only five people have been convicted, but with a low profile, while others remained unpunished.

A subcommittee of the National Assembly presented in February 2021, a report, which registered sexual abuse and physical and psychological mistreatment that dozen of minors have been suffered since 2015, in at least 14 shelters under the supervision of the Secretariat for the Care of Children and Infants.

Following the scandal, the country has been under continuous disturbances calling for punishment on those implicated, and the ones in charge of protecting the children coming from socially vulnerable homes or in situations of extreme poverty.

The United Nations Children’s Fund asked the Panamanian government, aimed the events, not to delay any longer a law that offered guarantees and the integral protection of children and adolescents.

The President of the Republic, Laurentino Cortizo, ruled legislation last Tuesday,  that according to him offers greater guarantees and integral protection to this sector of the population, a measure demanded by the society.