Santo Domingo.-Commercial sexual exploitation of minors occurs frequently in the Dominican Republic, especially in people living in extreme poverty, who can use this means to obtain economic resources.
But they are also taken advantage of by human trafficking networks, or pimps, who take advantage of their needs.
In these cases, parents or people close to them are silent for fear that someone will be imprisoned or rather, of being the main accused of committing or promoting this act.
Francis Williams, psychologist in family therapy.
A recent case of child abuse comes to light after the urban artist Aderly Ramírez Oviedo known as “Rochy RD” was accused by the Public Ministry of having sexual relations with a minor under 16 years of age.
Rochy RD, together with her partner Stacy Peña (La Demente 1212), used mechanisms such as a prostitution ring for minors, who were sought out and taken by “La Demente”, promising a payment of RD$10,000 for them to have sexual relations with him. accused.
In the case, a measure of coercion was also imposed consisting of an economic guarantee to the mother of the minor and a restraining order for her daughter.
The judge of the Office of Permanent Attention of Santo Domingo East, Bernardo Coplin, postponed until Sunday the coercion measure requested against “Rochy RD”.
In another order, the accusing body activates the search for the defendant’s partner, “La Demente”, for being part of the organization to allegedly prostitute adolescents in exchange for gifts.
specialists
Sexual exploitation is the product of marginalization at the most dehumanized levels possible.
The social ballast that society carries is the product of that marginality, which denies access to health, education, decent work and that are often relatives who live from the exploitation they carry out on infants.
According to the director of Psychology of the Department of Mental Health of Public Health, Elías Tejeda, from the age of 10 these infants start in the sexual sphere, as a way to be able to sustain themselves economically and get out of poverty.
The specialist highlighted that the sexual exploitation of minors in the country has a very alarming connotation in tourist areas, which have a large population of infants and young people who are being exploited for this type of work that is masked behind abuse. of one person exercising power over another.
“There are those who traffic with this type of adolescents, who promise them villas and castillas and what they do is that they subject them to live from that trade, where the most harmed are these poor girls”, he pointed out.
In addition, he stressed that this type of sexual exploitation occurs with men who are mostly of legal age who, by having sexual intercourse with infants, cover all their needs, but enslave them by turning them into young people who do not want to study and who will be mothers. and domestic.
Indicators
When a minor is carrying out an activity that undermines their full development as an individual, we are talking about a person who has been a victim of commercial sexual exploitation, said the head of the Section for Children and Adolescents in Street and Worst Situations Forms of Child Labor, Francis Williams, of the National Council for Children and Adolescents (Conani) correcting the term child prostitution.
Among the indicators is that the infants are absent from classes, that they have sexual behavior and that at some point they are afraid to touch on issues related to sexuality.
In this sense, he reported that many times the adolescent breaks the communication link with the parents, who do not realize that this case is happening.
Likewise, he said that the minor seeks in some way how to give an alert unconsciously and in other cases consciously.
Williams indicated that tourist areas lend themselves to more of this type of inappropriate behavior. Sexual exploitation of minors is an issue that is not easy to determine, because the exploiter uses mechanisms that are unimaginable in order to obtain their results.
He cited Law 136-03 of the Code for the System for the Protection of the Fundamental Rights of Children and Adolescents, which establishes that any person is called upon to make a complaint in the event of suspicion of a situation of mistreatment, abuse of an adolescent , dialing the telephone number 809-200-1202.
Campaign
— Prevention
Conani, together with several institutions linked to the protection of the Rights of Boys, Girls and Adolescents, initiates a campaign for the prevention and eradication of child abuse.
