2011, Number 6
Salud Mental 2011; 34 (6)
Principales problemas identificados en la investigación y atención de víctimas de la explotación sexual comercial infantil en México
Vega L, Gutiérrez R, Juárez LA, Rodríguez EM, Galván J
Full text
Language: Spanish
References: 27
Page: 537-543
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ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study is to identify and describe the actions designed to combat the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) which jeopardizes or affects the victims of exploitation. To this end, the paper analyzes the paradoxical results obtained in the research and actions to combat CSEC, implemented under the auspices of the institutions to promote research on CSEC and the prevention, protection and care of child victims of the phenomenon.These results were obtained by the research team when it systematized 16 CSEC diagnoses undertaken in various parts of the country and from the information derived from the fieldwork carried out between 2000 and 2005 by the Inter-Institutional Committees to combat CSEC and at the institutions for the protection and care of child victims of sexual exploitation.
The fieldwork involved participant observation during the working meetings of the Inter-Institutional Committees and at the «closed door» shelters inhabited by children and teenage victims of sexual exploitation. Individual interviews were conducted with the population of the shelter. Individual interviews were carried with the population at the shelter, with a good rapport being established with the various informants. They were asked to give their informed consent and assured of the confidentiality and anonymity of their identity. Participants were also given information on their health and referred to medical and psychological services when required.
The systematization of the 16 diagnoses basically describes the parts of the country where the studies were carried out; the type of institution responsible for the diagnosis; the objectives pursued; the type of techniques used to obtain information and whether or not the study complied with the basic ethical standards for the care and benefit of the informants participating in the diagnoses. The researchers stressed the ethical handling of the information and the implications of this for the child victims identified.
The main results show that the research was carried out in 48 municipalities, with 68.75% being carried out by institutions and organizations specializing in social assistance and/or private consultancy. Only a third of the studies (31.25%) were conducted by institutions specializing in social research. A total of 62.5% of the studies utilized quantitative techniques, while 43.75% employed qualitative techniques and 6.25% of the research combined the use of both techniques.
Moreover, most of the research failed to pay sufficient attention to the ethical aspects of protecting the informants; 75% of the informants reported not having been asked to give their informed consent, adding that no benefits were provided for the victims interviewed during the research. The results of the fieldwork in the various shelters revealed various institutional practices regarding the care of child victims that paradoxically ended up jeopardizing the child population they were supposedly trying to benefit.
Although the various shelters had protocols for permanent, comprehensive care (medical, psychological, social/familial) for the resident child population, the institutions’ programs and installations frequently lacked sufficient personnel and resources to guarantee proper care, particularly as regards physical and mental health. At the same time, there was a tendency to implement discriminatory measures in the case of girls who had been sexually exploited. They were asked to meet health requirements, placed in isolation, and subjected to diagnoses of their sexual practices and orientation that were not required of other children and teenagers admitted without having had a background of engagement in sexual commerce. At the same time, the institutions did not always meet the recommendations of the care protocols, since they ended up prioritizing moral mandates on the behavior and lives of the girls affected by CSEC over the well-being and health the children required and/or wanted.
In short, we found that the actions for researching and caring for child victims tended to violate the basic general principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, such as non-discrimination, emphasizing the child’s higher interest, her voice and points of view and guaranteeing his or her right to life, survival and development.
The article concludes that in the experience of Mexican state institutions’ and civil society’s efforts to combat CSEC, there has been a rush to organize and carry out actions without having the resources to achieve this. This includes a lack of ethical research committees, specialized medical care and necessary healthcare networks, but above all, the fact that they have yet to fully assimilate the rights approach. This means that within CSEC, there is tendency towards a highly formalized, normative implementation of the rights approach while there is a prevalence of practices and conceptualizations based on a view of the children’s «irregular situation» and the risks and problems they face.
Similar results have also been observed in most of the Latin American countries that ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child. As in Mexico, many of the countries implemented the rights approach in a formalistic manner. They assumed that simply citing the articles in the CRC in the laws, trials, inter-institutional committees, research, programs to benefit children, leaflets for tourists, radio and TV programs, etc., would suffice to change the cultural beliefs and practices that for many years have enabled adults to interact with children as «minors», subordinates, property or even merchandise.
After a decade of formalist applications in Latin America, the results suggest that no state has managed to ensure that all children will effectively enjoy, without discrimination, the human rights to survival, development, participation and protection in special situations in which their rights are violated.
Contrary to expectations, the paradigm of irregular situations has not been replaced by a rights approach and the two situations have coincided instead. As in Mexico, there has been a process of progress and regression, resulting from the unequal permeation of the various institutional and cultural spheres by the principles of the Convention. This has been determined by various factors: the CRC’s degree of penetration of normative regulations; the sociocultural diversity of the populations which the authorities are attempting to benefit; the role of the state, the market and civil society in the provision of services for children; the availability and accessibility of resources; corporate resistance to change and the influence of political parties, among others.
According to Pilloti, the formalistic implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Latin America is implemented from rigid, exclusive conceptions that ignore the moment and the historical, social and cultural context and fail to contribute to the analysis of the problems affecting children and/or the drawing up of strategies to discourage this. The formalistic application of the CRC tends to overestimate the role of laws and judicial procedures as instruments of social change, by separating the discourse on children’s rights from the socio-economic and cultural reality in which the injustices affecting children are expressed.
REFERENCES
Organización Internacional del Trabajo en México OIT. Red por los derechos de la infancia en México. México: CEPADES, Secretaría del Trabajo y Previsión Social. Análisis de la infancia en la prensa escrita desde los enfoques de género y de derechos. Programa Internacional para la Erradicación del Trabajo Infantil (IPEC), Oficina para Cuba y México de la Organización Internacional del Trabajo (OIT); 2007.
Casillas R. La trata de mujeres, adolescentes, niñas y niños en México. Un estudio exploratorio en Tapachula, Chiapas. México: Comisión Interamericana de Mujeres, Organización de Estados Americanos, Organización Internacional para las Migraciones, Instituto Nacional de las Mujeres, Instituto Nacional de Migración; 2006.