The arrival and convocation of Grooming Argentina to the IX Summit of the Americas implied, on the one hand, accounting for the unfortunate growth of such a serious crime as grooming, which has been exponentially worsening for many years, reaching a remarkable proliferation product of the impact that the Covid-19 pandemic also had on digital matters; and on the other, it led to a succession of relevant events that gave rise to an innovative idea materialized in the birth of the first Latin American project to fight grooming, promoted by the NGO, called: GROOMING LATAM.
This “Hub” of civil society organizations that will make up and integrate “Grooming Latam”, promoted and directed by Grooming Argentina, will be characterized by the implementation of innovative measures related, on the one hand, to preventing this crime in Latin American countries, as well as promoting digital education in the educational community as a tool for transformation and protection, assistance and accompaniment to victims and families through the innovative “GAPP” application, which provides an exclusive channel for complaints that it intends to articulate with the different national police forces, supported by the accompaniment of the technology industry through priority channels to guarantee effective access to justice for children and adolescents who are experiencing this new form of sexual abuse without physical contact.
At the same time, another important milestone for the genesis of “Grooming Latam” was promoted as a result of the first Guide on grooming for families and communities in Latin America that was launched during the month of February of the current year between Grooming Argentina and Twitter, where it had a strong acceptance in the families and communities of Latin America, which is why we were forced to contemplate and receive the genuine need on the part of society about the value of information on a subject that is still unknown by the vast majority of people, thus continuing with the firm premise that “an informed society is a protected society”.
Being at the forefront of human rights implies the recognition of the challenges and threats that arise in the internet ecosystem and that cross societies in the face of a resounding paradigm shift in digital matters.
For this reason, GROOMING LATAM intends through its imprint to have an echo in the future since it will be a cutting-edge project in the protection of the rights of children and adolescents in digital environments and against the crime of grooming, in such a way that it will articulate also with the States of the region, in the understanding that specialized civil society organizations must influence public policies to build and generate fairer and more equitable societies.
Let us not ignore the suffering that so many children and adolescents suffer daily through this crime, where we see broken families, broken childhoods, the silent degradation of the social fabric caused by a public enemy that is pedophilia, which through this network, We declare war on it.
