Prosecutor dismissed for sexual abuse of a minor who had been detained

This Thursday, the National Commission for Judicial Discipline removed and disqualified prosecutor Mario de Jesús Bustamente for 14 years. The official is accused of sexually abusing a minor in 2014, in Tarazá, Antioquia.

The victim denounced the case and assured that the events occurred on July 19, 2014. The juvenile was captured and brought to justice for the crime of qualified theft, according to the file, and the prosecutor reportedly released the young man without any explanation and without carrying out the corresponding procedures.

The complaint filed by the minor explains that the 46-year-old man caused him to “lock himself up with him in his office and constrain him to carry out acts of sexual content such as touching on different parts of the body”. In this way, Bustamante would have used his position of power to sexually abuse the victim in order to grant him his freedom. The investigation also showed that some time later the prosecutor offered money to the young man and his family to change their version.

With the foregoing, the National Commission for Judicial Discipline found the prosecutor guilty at first and second instance. The magistrate who took the case described the offense as a very serious offense and punishable by way of intent.

“The reproached act was considered violent, due to the psychological coercion of the prosecutor, who abused his figure of authority by taking advantage of the clandestinity, his intellectual and economic level, as well as the age difference with the victim, added to the marginality and vulnerability in which he found himself”, the document reads delivered by the entity.

In 61 per cent of complaints related to sexual offences, victims are minors

Due to the critical panorama faced by minors in Colombia, the Laboratory for the Economics of Education (LEE), of the Javeriana University, published a research called: “Sexual Crimes of Minors in Colombia: Sex Education as the Main Tool”.

According to El Tiempo, which had access to full information, LEE indicated that in 2021, approximately 43,993 complaints associated with sexual crimes were filed in Colombia, in which 85.4% of the cases the victim is a woman. In addition, in addition to 100 per cent of complaints, 27,000 complaints, or 61 per cent, relate to cases against children and adolescents, that is, on average, abuse against a minor is reported every 20 minutes.

“One of the most worrying aspects is that 85 per cent of complaints are from women. The rights of girls and women are violated and in countries like Colombia, women are vulnerable and discriminated against, in education, in the labor market, there is a lot of machismo and society has normalized this, we accept it because it has always been that way,” Luz Karime Abadía, co-director of LEE, told the Colombian media outlet.

On the other hand, research carried out by Universidad Javeriana also shows that the increase in these crimes has occurred since 2010. According to the data collection, the increase has been as follows: in 2010 the Office of the Prosecutor received 10,911 complaints of sexual crimes against children and adolescents, in 2015 cases increased to 18,885, and in 2018 they tripled compared to 2010:30,121 complaints and in 2019 the highest number of complaints: 35,738.

The study linked this in part to the legal inefficiency that exists in dealing with the facts: “This is the result of a judicial system that does not function properly, which does not provide guarantees to victims; justice is inefficient in Colombia, it generates revictimization, grief and causes crime to continue to occur.”

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