Although the figures show that violence against children “has decreased” according to the Police, “the number of complaints has decreased, but not the violence.”
The provinces that register the most missing persons are Guayas (Guayaquil), Pichincha (Quito) and Santo Domingo.
The director of the ECU 911 service, Juan Zapata, revealed that during the emergency the entity attended 28,367 episodes related to domestic violence, which translates into 268 daily coordinations, a decrease of 23% compared to 2019.
Nearly 200 minors in Ecuador, 70% of them female, disappeared “voluntarily” during the health emergency, in many cases as victims of domestic violence.
According to Dinapen, these cases add to patterns driven by psychological and physical abuse, a considerable number due to the influence of friends, behavior problems and addiction.
Colonel Rodrigo Javier Morales, director of the specialized Police for Boys, Girls and Adolescents (Dinapen), revealed to EFE that between March 17, a day after the state of emergency was declared by COVID-19, and until June 7, 2020, 192 cases of “voluntary disappearances” of minors were registered in Ecuador.
These types of disappearances are different from forced disappearances, since the minor is unaccounted for by her relatives, but not by a cause beyond her control in which interest or extortion mediates.
The own restrictions that the pandemic has imposed have considerably limited the movement and reporting capacity of minors, which does not imply a decrease in abuses.
“On intra-family violence, we cannot say that it has decreased. What we have been able to analyze is that the complaint has dropped, but not the violence, “stresses the head of Dinapen.
Of the disappeared persons investigated, 70% were girls who mostly left their homes for “sentimental” reasons, Morales clarifies, stressing that “this is what has prevailed in this recent time of pandemic.”
The unit has a high rate of case resolution, around 97.9%, although 16 of them have not yet been clarified.
“The numbers have not reflected everything that has happened with these voluntary disappearances,” said the president of the Council for the Protection of Rights in Quito, Councilor Gissela Chalá.
The problem, even due to addictions, hides behind “an issue of child abuse,” defends Chalá, noting that only during the first month of the emergency, 667 types of assaults were reported in homes against minors.
Based on official data, during the emergency the Council has counted 1,290 children infected by Covid-19 in the country, eleven adolescent suicides and that, every two days, one or a minor is a victim of sexual abuse.
A Unicef study on the Situation of Children and Adolescents 2019, reflects that 33% of parents say they use physical punishment as disciplinary measures with their children. (C.D.A.)
Source: EFE
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