World Children’s Day: Spain prepares the tools to improve the protection of children

Spain reaches the World Children’s Day, which is commemorated this Saturday, with the legislative duties well advanced. Last June, the law for the protection of children against violence, popularly known as’ley Rhodes‘, in reference to the pianist who suffered sexual abuse as a child or’ lopivi ‘, in the jargon of the experts. The rule It is one of the most advanced in the world, according to childhood platforms. But now it’s time to implement it, a “complex” task, according to the general director of Rights of Children and Adolescents, Violeta Assiego, in statements to EL PERIÓDICO.

Part of the complexity derives from the fact that they are autonomies the ones that have many of the skills. For this reason, the Ministry of Social Rights, on which the General Directorate for Children depends, launched the sectoral conference with the communities that will be in charge of developing the law. This body approved on Monday the Roadmap that materializes and dates the main obligations.

Anti-Assault Coordinator

This calendar marks, for example, that educational centers have an anti-aggression coordinator, who is in charge of preventing, detecting and reporting situations of violence. harassment, sexual abuse, gender-based violence, suicide, or self-harm that the minors of the center suffer (outside and inside its walls), starting next year.

Likewise, it marks that the conference should raise, in the second quarter of 2022, the National Strategy for the Eradication of Violence, It will be multiannual and will place special emphasis on preventing abuse in the family, educational, new technologies, leisure and sports spheres. The Strategy will be accompanied by a economic memory that identifies how to finance it and an evaluation of its degree of compliance, given one of the objectives of the ‘Rodhes law’, according to Assiego, is that there be “accountability“A provision that has not existed, for example, in the law against gender violence, which has not allowed the application of all its precepts, however necessary they may be.

Specialized courts

On the other hand, Social Rights has launched a monitoring commission of the law, together with the Ministries of the Interior and Justice. And the rule is that “the security forces, at all levels (state, regional, local), must have specialized units in violence against minors “and that all agents, of any unit,” receive specific training “, given that aggressions in childhood have a own identity and they do not always resemble other abuse.

In fact, the ‘Rhodes’ law extends the term of prescription, in cases of more serious sexual assaults, until the victim turn 50, given that many attacked do not dare to report until many years have passed. Before the approval of the law, the term began to count from the victim’s 18th birthday, which has led to the filing of many procedures. For example, in the ‘Maristas case’, of the 13 professors denounced, only one went to trial and for four of the 17 lawsuits.

In this context, the norm also contemplates that Justice present in June a project to specialize the judicial bodies and the prosecution, similar to the specialized court that works in The Gran Canarian palms since the beginning of the year. “The experience is being very positive and we are working to export it,” says the CEO.

Children’s houses

It is also planned to extend the children’s houses that follow the Barnahus model, such as the one that already exists in Tarragona. These are spaces that offer comprehensive care, through a disciplinary and coordinated group, to child victims of abuse and sexual abuse, so that the minor counts in a friendly environment what has happened to you and you don’t have to repeat it over and over again, resulting in double victimization. His story within the walls of the Barnahus and through the pre-constituted test serves for police and judges.

Related news

Euskadi plans to open a children’s home in Álava and Social Rights is in contact with the European Council to find a way to give it a state boost. And it is that by 2020 35,778 were presented complaints who had a minor as a victim. Of these, 5,685 were for crimes against sexual freedom, about 15 a day. And, despite the worrying figure, according to experts, these data are only the tip of the iceberg because many minors do not dare to verbalize the aggressions.

Finally and also in compliance with the ‘lopivi’, Social Rights has launched the State Council for Child Participation, which will be made up of 34 children and adolescents who will give their opinion on the laws that have to do with their rights. Thus promoting that minors give their opinion on matters that affect them.