ICBF closed community home for alleged case of sexual violence in Pereira

The Colombian Institute for Family Welfare (ICBF) ordered the immediate suspension of service at a Community Home in Pereira, Risaralda, for an alleged case of sexual violence against a three-year-old girl. The other minors who were there were transferred to other schools in the municipality.

The entity activated the route of verification of rights for all children using the community home and began their relocation to other service units in the municipality in order to ensure their initial education.

Likewise, a team from the Center for Comprehensive Care for Victims of Sexual Violence (CAIVAS) advanced the respective assessments to begin the process of restoring the rights of the girl child, so that she can receive all the necessary medical and psychosocial care. And the Prosecutor's Office also began investigations to find out the whereabouts of the person responsible.

The Regional Director of the ICBF in Risaralda, Claudia Serna Gallego, said that “situations like this, which involve children under the care of the Institute's service units, make it necessary to take the measures provided for in the technical guidelines, in order to guarantee the well-being of all children beneficiaries”.

At the same time, the elite Guardian of Childhood team moved to the site to accompany all the beneficiaries of the Community Home, conducted interviews with the human talent of that unit to establish responsibilities and will continue to support the criminal investigation by the Attorney General's Office all the information required.

The Elite Guardian of Childhood and Adolescence group is an interdisciplinary team specialized in the identification of risks and warning signs to situations of violence against children and adolescents within the service units in all forms of care of the Institute.

It should be recalled that, in October 2021, they closed a community home in Pereira due to the complaint of a case of sexual abuse of three girls attended to in the place, where the child of the caregiver mother would have been responsible, according to a citizen's complaint of the facts.

“In that case of Pereira, come back and play that 85% of cases that are sexual abuse against girls. We closed the community home, the boys and girls who attended, who number 14, were relocated and the three girls who would have been victims of sexual abuse are under the protection of the Institute, doing the entire scheme to be able to restore their rights,” said Lina María Arbeláez, director general of the ICBF.

At the time, when the entity heard about the alleged case of sexual abuse, it ordered the immediate closure of the service unit and the relocation of all children to another home to safeguard them, a team from the Center for Comprehensive Care for Victims of Sexual Violence also advanced the respective assessments to start the processes of restoration of the rights of each girl, however, so far there are no results known from this research.

In August 2021, the director of the Colombian Institute for Family Welfare (ICBF), Lina Arbeláez, delivered a worrying figure: more than 6,900 children in Colombia have been victims of sexual abuse. With this, the agency called to “rethink ourselves as a society” and to ensure the protection of the rights of minors in all their dimensions.

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