Caribbean & Central America - April 2017 (ISSN 1741-4458)

Two incidents last month brought the issue of children’s rights in Guatemala to the fore – a blaze following a riot at a children’s centre, Hogar Seguro Virgen de la Asunción, on 8 March which killed 41 girls, and a riot at the Centro Estatal Etapa II (Etapa II) prison for juveniles and adults on 19 March which left four prison guards dead. The violence at both institutions (which are administered by the social welfare secretariat [SBS] whose directors have since been fired) shocked the local and international community alike. It serves as the latest reminder of the ways in which the Guatemalan State falls woefully short of protecting children’s rights.

The riot at Etapa II, where there were reportedly 201 adolescents for 160 places, was staged by jailed members of the Barrio 18 – one of the country’s main street gangs. While the protest stemmed in part from their demands for the return of inmates sent to another juvenile centre (see sidebar), it has since emerged that back in October 2016 a judge issued an order calling for the conditions at the prison to be improved. A report published at the time by the human rights ombudsman (PDH) on Etapa II (along with three other detention centres monitored) flagged up major concerns. Noting that nearly 50% of key posts for social workers, psychologists, and teachers were vacant, the PDH estimates that 75% more personnel were necessary.

The violence at the prison came less than two weeks after the fire at Hogar Seguro Virgen de la Asunción made international headlines amid reports that the girls who perished had been initially unable to escape from the fire as they were locked in a room. The local press reported that the protests were over poor conditions at the centre where, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), some 700-800 girls and adolescents were held, well above the facilities’ maximum capacity (of 400).

The incident led the IACHR to issue a statement on 13 March flagging up more general concerns about Guatemala’s child protection institutions. These included “frequent allegations of physical, psychological, and sexual violence – perpetrated by staff or by other residents – in these types of large institutions, as well as negligent treatment, inadequate nutrition, lack of access to age-appropriate educational and medical services, and unwarranted restrictions to contact with family members, all of which constitute serious violations of the rights of children”.

These concerns have long been held by the IAHCR and other international human rights organisations. In a report released at the end of 2015, the IACHR raised multiple concerns warning that “children and adolescents continued to have their human rights severely violated by…the State’s failure to comply with its duty to afford them special protection” as well as “the social and economic situation; domestic violence; collective violence (crime, organized crime, gangs or “maras”)”. The same report cites figures from United Nations Emergency Fund for Children (Unicef) which estimate that, in 2013, there were 5,474 children, including adolescents, in institutions in Guatemala as a measure of protection: 1,925 in public institutions and 3,549 in private establishments. The report notes that while lower than the figures for 2011, the number of children in institutions remains very high, a situation exacerbated by the fact that only 35% of institutionalized children are under proper judicial protection.

Local think tanks such as the Guatemala City-based Central American institute for fiscal studies (Icefi) have gone on to warn that incidents like the deadly blaze at Hogar Seguro Virgen de la Asunción are just the “tip of the iceberg”. In a 12 March press release, Icefi pointed to the woeful lack of investment by the State (Q$7.48/US$1.02 per day) on each child and adolescent – an amount that it notes is “insufficient to guarantee their wellbeing and full development”. Icefi also warns that “the lack of public services for effective social protection means that 3.7m [Guatemalan] children live in poverty” with a further 1.6m “vulnerable” to the threat of poverty as a result of factors like “child labour, familial disintegration, and abuse”.

Another pressing issue – malnutrition

As well as the threat of violence, IACHR and other human rights bodies highlight the prevalence of chronic malnutrition among children as another way in which the State is failing to protect children’s rights.

In a report released in January 2017, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) notes that the El Niño climate phenomenon has heightened the malnutrition crisis, especially in the south-eastern regions, where more than 75.2% of the corn harvest of 2016 was lost. The OHCHR report notes that “alarmingly, 12,600 cases of acute malnutrition in children under 5 have been reported to date in 2016, resulting in 113 deaths (a decrease of 18 cases as compared to last year)”. The OHCHR report highlights that still outstanding is the development of an inter-institutional administrative protocol on children suffering from chronic malnutrition, as ordered by the Constitutional Court in 2016, which called upon the State to develop urgent responses to this problem. The report notes that in March 2016 the national strategy to prevent chronic malnutrition for the period 2016-2020 was launched, aimed at reducing chronic malnutrition by 10% over the next four years.

• Mixing gang members and those unaffiliated with gangs

The local press also reporting that inmates’ demands included calls for the return of Barrio 18 members recently transferred to another juvenile detention centre, Centro Juvenil de Detención Provisional (Cejudep). Hilda Morales, a deputy prosecutor for human rights, also pointed out that the facility held gang members mixed with other detainees unaffiliated with gangs. Vladimir López, the deputy director of the social welfare secretariat (SBS), told reporters that while the Etapa II prison is supposed to house minors, of 56 known gang members held in it, 39 were adults. This has fuelled concerns that while street gangs have long used adult prisons as bases of operations and to recruit new members, this process has now extended to juvenile detention facilities as well.

• Government response

As well as sacking three top officials from the social welfare secretariat (SBS), including its director Carlos Antonio Rodas Mejía, who are now being investigated for the crimes of homicide, negligence of duties, and mistreatment of minors, on 14 March Finance Minister Julio Héctor Estrada told reporters that the government would assign a further Q$75m (US$10m) this year to pay for at least 13 new centres (with the capacity to house between 20 and 40 children each) and improve existing centres for children under SBS care.