The Ombudsman for Children and Adolescents, Marisa Graham, praised the “visibility” acquired by the sector she represents in the last two years, and took advantage of the iReport provided to national legislatorss to question the situation of minors interned in addiction and mental illness recovery sites.
“During 2021 we achieved a visibility of our institution that we had not had the previous year,” said Graham, noting that with this protagonism “greater power and coherence” was acquired.
“There is no province that has not had some type of intervention from the Ombudsman,” the official mentioned before a group of senators and national deputies from the Permanent Bicameral Commission that studies and debates the problems of children and adolescents in the National Congress.
During the meeting that took place in the Auditorium Hall of the annex building of the Chamber of Senators of the Nation, Graham took the opportunity to express that the institution he presides over is “an independent and self-sufficient human rights defense organization” that is not ” neither from the Executive Power nor from the Legislative Power but neither from the Judicial Power”.
Another of the progress you mentioned, in addition to having a own building, is the creation of a internal audit and of the network of provincial defenders and adolescentsboys and girls promoters of rights for work in the territory.
Food safety
The spotlights on which he focused the activity of the Ombudsman were “food security, educational continuity, family income and the issue of juvenile justice from the point of view of legality”.
“We continue to ask the national government to extend the feed card with families up to 17 years old”, he remarked about food security, while warning that “you can see how its absence clearly impacts the income of 15, 16 and 17 year old boys”.
He also highlighted that “137,815 boys and girls acquired their right to the child allowance”, and that the limit of five children “seemed arbitrary” so it was achieved that “last year they joined the Universal Child Allowance (AUH) 23,015 guys.”
He also claimed that the Food Card “it is tied to some updating mechanism, as the AUH has, and that it does not depend on a decision” of the government in power.
institutional violence
On the other hand, Graham also stated that “There were complaints, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in some places of confinement, particularly of males.”
“There is a lot institutional violence in places of accommodation for boys, girls and in particular in which there are problems of addiction and mental illness”, he pointed out, he mentioned.
Graham added that it takes “a new mental health law with which we must advance in the 24 districts of the country”and celebrated “the progress made by the Ombudsman at the provincial level and as an institution, in general.”
Education
“The problem of desertion worsened with the pandemic and we need to go look for each boy, see each situation and why he is not going to school”, he stressed.
In this regard, he believed that a “school that receives them and retains them, in the best sense of the word. Make it attractive.”
“The System for the Protection of Boys, Girls and Adolescents exists. What we are looking for is to rank it. That it have more authority within the provinces,” he said.
Regarding this issue, Graham believed that “provincial governments should give greater hierarchy to their officials and operators” in the area of childhood.
