Ecuador lacks child protection system, says Unicef

Speaking on Thursday at the “Childhood First” forum commemorating the 35th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Melo recalled that Ecuador was the first country in the region to ratify the treaty.

Among the milestones achieved in recent years, she highlighted that since 1989 the infant mortality rate has fallen from 50 to eight deaths per thousand live births, that access to primary education has become “almost universal”, hand in hand with vaccination campaigns that have eradicated diseases such as polio and measles.

However, she regrets that currently one in five children suffers from chronic malnutrition, one in two experiences physical or psychological violence at home and that every day five girls between the ages of 10 and 14 give birth as a result of sexual abuse.

Today, minors are being recruited by criminal gangs, especially in socially disadvantaged communities where they are not given opportunities to develop, she noted.

The UNICEF representative stressed that it is not the richest people who are recruited by criminal gangs, but the poor and vulnerable, who are in urgent need of treatment to escape this situation.

In the past, this country had an inadequate child protection system, but now it no longer exists at all, Melo stressed, urging the state to restore that system.

Eid/lamb/apr