The boy who told through a drawing that he was abused at his school

Some drawings with explicit sexual content in the notebooks of an 11-year-old boy who was in fifth grade at the Manuela Ayala Gaitán school in Engativá alarmed a teacher. She knew that this was not normal, that it was a risk factor, so she immediately sent the student to the school guidance office. That happened on May 23, 2022 in Colombia.

Later, in the same institution, a space of trust was created in which the boy was able to tell that he had been sexually abused by other students in the school facilities and that this would have happened two months ago, in the bathroom of the institution. There, without anyone being able to help him, they did what they wanted with his body. Because of the fear of telling what happened and his threats, he relieved himself by painting the scene in his notebooks.

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In accordance with the directives of the school, after this revelation they communicated with the guardians of the minor. They say that the guidance teacher, as well as the professional from the RIO-P Gender-Based Violence Prevention (GBV) team, told them everything that happened. They couldn’t believe such evil.

Due to the impact of the child’s testimony, a process of emotional containment was generated and his immediate attention was prioritized through the health system and support to help him as much as possible to reduce feelings of guilt. “The White Code was also activated through the Engativá Hospitalwhere the minor was sent”, said spokesmen for the District Education Secretariat (SED).

While the victim was being evaluated by doctors, the case was reported to line 123 for monitoring by the Police for Children and Adolescents. The case was also forwarded to the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation and the Ministry of Health.

On May 25, the boy’s parents reported that the student had been discharged and that they had gone to the facilities of the Colombian Family Welfare Institute (ICBF) to carry out physical examinations and the respective assessments that are carried out from the areas of social work and psychology.

However, another is the testimony of the family of the abused child. They say that the directives did not react in time, that they waited a day to inform them of the situation and that they were the ones who took the victim to a medical center to be evaluated by professionals. “The damage they did to my child is incalculable. He has physical and psychological affectations, she represented it in the drawings of him. We are going to sue the institution because they did not act correctly. The SED made only one call to me and they call that accompaniment”, said his mother.

According to the testimony of the student’s mother, the minor had been intimidated by students from other courses. “What he has told us is that they were threatened with a knife. That is why the boy had been showing aggressive behavior. I had asked for psychosocial help because he had lost his father a year ago. He was a follow-up child.”

He added that the day the minor was abused he left the house and that further alerted the family. “I told them: something is happening to my son and I need your help. Of course, two students had abused him and they threatened him in the corridors of the school.

At school and among the students there is also disgust. They have made it known through billboards in which they have also denounced the presence of weapons, drugs and more sexual abuse. “No more, we want solutions and answers”, says one of the claims. They also denounce that the rector of the campus has not provided a solution to all these problems despite the fact that she knows the situation.

Yesterday, the minor’s family filed a lawsuit with the Attorney General’s Office and conducted several forensic interviews. “This investigation must reveal not only what happened to my son, but everything that happens in that school.”

It must be remembered that the Secretary of District Education (SED) would have reported to the authorities 163 cases of sexual violence in educational institutions, committed by servants of the entity. Prosecutor Francisco Barbosa’s commitment was that, after a month of receiving this information package, the first results of the investigations would begin to be seen, but more progress is still needed.

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The Prosecutor’s Office notified that, to date, there is progress in clarifying 86.50% of the cases of sexual violence in the schools of the District that had been brought to the attention of the Mayor’s Office of Bogotá, and in which the The Secretary of Education of the city had open and ongoing disciplinary processes, but of these only 7% are in the trial stage with 12 teachers linked; another 11%, under investigation with 18 accused teachers; 14%, under investigation with current judicial police orders, and 110 facts will continue in the disciplinary process.

Source: Elcomercio

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