They are not girls, it is childhood

‘A sign should be placed on each child that says: Handle with care, contains dreams‘ (Mirko Badiale).

The recent media scandal that put the former president of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Juan Evo Morales Ayma, under suspicion of pedophilia has caused, as was logical to suppose, a political earthquake and popular indignation.

The matter is serious, but the focus is insufficient, since everything has focused on the figure of Evo. Morales and the girl or girls who are presumed to have been the victims, leaving what is truly serious in the background of the analysis, and that is that the underlying problem is NOT the girls, IT IS CHILDHOOD. (the institution)

Bolivia is one of the 196 countries that is part of The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on November 20, 1989, this is the most widely endorsed international human rights treatysince it has been ratified by 196 countries.

This treaty frames and defines childhood beyond cultural or ideological aspects, and commits member states to respect the rights of children framed in 54 articles and with the following precept:

“Recognize all people under 18 years of age as subjects with full rights. All the States Parties, including Spain, are obliged to respect the rights of children set out in the Convention and enforce them without distinction of color, sex, language, religion, opinions, origin, economic position, beliefs, impediments, birth or any other condition of the girl, boy, their parents or their legal representatives.” (taken from the CDN website).

Without intending to depersonalize the alleged victims of this serious complaint, the purpose of this opinion article is to emphasize the seriousness of the fact that the person who occupied the most important position, of the most important institution in Bolivia (the presidency) is the one who is suspected of having violated an institution as delicate as childhood. A president in office WHEN HE ACTS, HE MAKES A STATE, because for anything he does he involves his environment, both in terms of security, protocol, etc. If the accusations are proven, the institutional damage is very serious.

It is estimated that in Bolivia a third of the population are children, the data published by UNICEF are alarming:

1 in 10 children perform dangerous, prohibited or unhealthy jobs.

More than half of child workers in Bolivia are under 14 years old

90% of child labor in Bolivia is informal.

These and other data show the state of precariousness and defenselessness of children that still exists in high percentages in Bolivia, if we add to that a threat as great as being possible victims of abuse and manipulation by a power such as the that comes to represent a high authority, rather than being in the middle of a moral or political dilemma, we are facing a crime and an involution of the concept of civilization that can have serious consequences.

That the morbidity of the specific case is NOT the tree that does not let us see the forest.