Re: Girls Naked In Guatemala
Angie Troia
Nineteen girls died in the fire at the Virgen de la Asuncion youth shelter that day, and a further 21 later succumbed to their injuries in hospital. Seven survivors were flown to two hospitals in the US, the Shriners Hospital for Children in Boston and Texas. One girl has since died, bringing the death toll to 41. The remaining six are now in a stable condition.
After the fire, panic-stricken relatives flocked to the shelter to remove their children from the facility. But around 50 children and adolescents who have no relatives or whose relatives do not want to look after them remain there.
Some, such as the Carias sisters, had behavioural issues. Others had been rescued from violent homes or from brothels where they were forced to engage in prostitution, while others were orphans or had special needs and were abandoned by families in extreme poverty who could not afford medication and specialised care. Some had run away from home after being bullied at school or threatened by gang members.
Guatemala currently has seven state-run youth shelters and two facilities for youth offenders, where overcrowding and inadequate food, which were among the conditions reported at Virgen de la Asuncion, are the norm.
After the fire, 130 severely disabled children were moved to the Alida Espana de Arana home for children with disabilities, where 43 of them are housed together in one room. Disability Rights International, a Washington-based advocacy group whose representatives visited the new home, said in a report that these children were at risk of suffering the same abuse they had endured at the previous shelter because the new facility was not prepared to accommodate them.
Since the fire at the Virgen de la Asuncion youth shelter, teenage girls who were sent there have told various Guatemalan media outlets that strangers were brought in at night and allowed to single out the girls they wished to abuse. Children and teenagers, both boys and girls, told the Guatemalan media they were sexually abused and beaten by members of staff.
Two teachers were arrested in 2013 and are awaiting trial, accused of sexually abusing children and teenagers in the shelter. One of them is accused of forcing children as young as 12 to strip naked and perform oral sex on him. The same year, a workman hired by staff to carry out maintenance work was given a 15-year prison sentence for raping a mentally disabled 13-year-old girl.
Judge Veronica Galicia was so shocked by what she saw when she visited the shelter last June that she ordered it to be closed by December but the order was never obeyed, as she detailed on her Facebook page the day after the fire. Her ruling was published online by Canal Antigua news channel.
Two reports by UN rapporteurs on the conditions in the shelter as well as precautionary measures issued by the Inter-American Human Rights Commission also went unheeded, which means Guatemala could be sanctioned by an international tribunal for violating the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Ramon Cadena, a representative of the International Commission of Jurists in Guatemala, told Al Jazeera.
Before they were flown to the US, three of the seven survivors said that 47 of those who escaped were caught by armed police and taken back to the shelter at gunpoint, where they were shoved into a classroom with a few foam mattresses.
According to these accounts, the police ignored their screams and pleas to open the door, which remained locked until the fire brigade arrived 25 minutes later and found burned bodies and victims of smoke inhalation as well as the severely burned survivors.
On March 13, the director of the Virgen de la Asuncion youth shelter as well as the director and deputy director of the social welfare government bureau, were arrested on homicide and child abuse charges. On April 7, they were granted house arrest on the condition of bail after a preliminary hearing.
The day after the three officials were arrested, President Morales appointed a new director and deputy director of the social welfare government bureau. Both have a track record of working with widely recognised child welfare NGOs such as Save the Children and World Vision. To date, however, the Virgen de la Asuncion youth shelter remains without a new director, as no one has accepted the position. The shelter is due to be closed as soon as the remaining 50 children are housed elsewhere.
Child welfare experts insist the institutions in charge of young people who become wards of the state need a drastic overhaul in order to prevent such tragedies from happening again. Some suggest scrapping the Secretariat and replacing it with a Ministry of Family Affairs with a greater budget.
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The Commission on Human Rights was addressed this afternoon by its Special Rapporteur on the human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people, who said such populations continued to suffer from high levels of discrimination, racism, and economic and social disadvantages.
The Rapporteur, Rodolfo Stavenhagen, said one focus of his work was on the impact of large-scale or major development projects on indigenous peoples and communities. When such developments occurred, it was likely that indigenous communities would undergo profound social and economic changes that were frequently not well-understood, much less foreseen, by the authorities in charge of promoting the projects, Mr. Stavenhagen said. No activity had shown this situation better than the construction of large multi-purpose dams -- the principal human rights effects of these projects for indigenous peoples related to the loss of traditional lands and territories, eviction, migration and eventual resettlement, depletion of resources, destruction and pollution of the traditional environment, social and community disorganization, and long-term negative health and nutritional impacts as well as, in some cases, harassment and violence.
Representatives of Guatemala and the Philippines spoke as countries concerned in the report of Mr. Stavenhagen.
A Representative of the Secretariat, speaking on behalf of Luis Enrique Chavez, Chairperson-Rapporteur of the Working Group on a draft Declaration on the rights of indigenous people, said the Chairperson was satisfied by the signs of openness displayed by all participants at the latest meeting of the Working Group -- the last session had marked a change in the way dialogue had proceeded. Resolution of the question of self-determination remained central to the drafting of a declaration, he said.
Reports also were presented on the status of funds established for indigenous populations and for the International Decade of the World's Indigenous People.
A series of national delegations described efforts to protect indigenous groups and to ensure their full enjoyment of human rights. Providing statements were Representatives of Costa Rica (on behalf of the Group of Latin American and Caribbean Countries), Peru, Canada, Cuba, Australia, Denmark (on behalf of the Nordic countries), Chile, Paraguay, Argentina, Venezuela, Syrian Arab Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, New Zealand, Ecuador, and Switzerland, along with spokespersons for the non-governmental organizations: International Federation of Rural Adult Catholic Movements; South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre; All for Reparations and Emancipation; Transnational Radical Party; International Indian Treaty Council; and International Organization of Indigenous Resources Development.
In addition, the Commission carried on this afternoon with debate under its agenda item on the human rights of women, hearing from numerous non-governmental organizations.
Indigenous Issues
Debate under this agenda item was opened to allow presentation to the Commission of several reports. In all, the Commission has before it a series of documents on indigenous issues.
There is a report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples (E/CN.4/2003/90). The thematic focus of the report is on the impact of large-scale or major development projects on the human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples and communities, a subject which many indigenous representatives at the Working Group on Indigenous Populations and the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues have repeatedly pointed out as being of crucial importance for the full enjoyment of their human rights. When such developments occur in areas occupied by indigenous peoples, it is likely that their communities will undergo profound social and economic changes that are frequently not well understood, much less foreseen, by the authorities in charge of promoting them. No activity had shown this situation better than the construction of large multi-purpose dams that affect indigenous areas. The principal human rights effects of these projects for indigenous peoples are related to loss of traditional lands and territories, eviction, migration and eventual resettlement, depletion of resources, destruction and pollution of the traditional environment, social and community disorganization, long-term negative health and nutritional impacts as well as, in some cases, harassment and violence.
The Special Rapporteur recommends that Governments and business enterprises work closely with indigenous peoples and organizations to seek consensus on development strategies and projects, and set up adequate institutional mechanisms to handle these issues. There are three addenda to the report on communications on alleged human rights violations of indigenous peoples received and processed by the Special Rapporteur; and on official visits to Guatemala, the Philippines, and Botswana.
There is a report of the working group on a draft UN declaration on the rights of indigenous people (E/CN.4/2003/92). The report contains a record of the general debate held by the working group on the articles of the United Nations Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. An addendum (Add.1) contains a list of the documentation available at the session of the working group and a list of Government and non-governmental organizations participating in the meeting.