Teacher who abused a minor was sentenced to 12 years in prison

On the afternoon of this Tuesday, April 12, a criminal judge of the Medellín Circuit sentenced a 47-year-old mathematics teacher to 12 years in prison for the crime of sexual acts with an aggravated minor under 14 years of age.

According to the investigation carried out by a prosecutor at the Center for Comprehensive Care for Victims of Sexual Abuse (Caivas), the facts investigated occurred in an educational institution in the La Francia neighborhood of the capital of Antioquia, in May 2016, when the teacher performed sexual touching of a child under 11 years of age.

The work carried out by the investigating body led to the conclusion that the abuse was committed in one of the bathrooms of the school, where the minor was surprised by the defendant. At the time of the incident, the victim would have managed to leave the scene, never to return to school again. During the investigation, the deputy prosecutor proved that on several occasions the teacher told the abused that if he let himself play, he would “raise his grade”.

After hearing the arguments of both parties, the judge ordered the arrest of the sentenced person to serve the sentence in the place determined by the National Penitentiary and Prison Institute (Inpec). For its part, the defense appealed the decision of first instance to the Criminal Chamber of the High Court of Medellín.

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According to an investigation carried out by the newspaper El Colombiano in Medellín, according to data from the Protective School Environment program, 1,876 cases of school violence have been reported in the last three years, related to sexual harassment, intimidation, bullying, among others.

According to the report: School Conditions for Welfare in Colombia, published by the organization Escalando and the Laboratory for the Economics of Education of the Javeriana University, the Antioquia Ministry of Education is in deficit with educating its teachers about preventing these types of violence.

According to the results of the study, only 43% of schools report training teachers in mental and emotional health; 28% in bullying, bullying and cyberbullying prevention; 26% on stigma and discrimination prevention; 26% in sexuality, sexual and reproductive rights; and 14% on violence prevention gender-based and intra-family.

Among the findings of the report, it would be noted, “negligence or insufficient responses by institutions, and even re-victimization towards victims, in the care of cases”. According to the Medellín Ministry of Education, “support is currently provided for the prevention of bullying situations and their attention through the Protective School Environment program, which was adopted and institutionalized in Agreement 146 of 2019. ″

The councillor of Medellín, Dora Saldarriaga, explained to the Antioquian media that, “the city's schools and institutions are confusing the routes of referral to the corresponding entities, such as the ICBF and the Ombudsman's Office, with the design and execution of true protocols for prevention and intervention in the interior of schools.”

Every day in Legal Medicine 48 cases of child sexual abuse are reported. According to official data from the entity, 17,534 cases of sexual violence in children were reported in 2021. In the family environment there are the main aggressors, followed by the school environment. Of the total reported in the last year, in 184 cases the aggressor was a teacher. In addition, 80 attacks were committed by classmates from the same school.

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