Alexia Villaseñor
La Jornada newspaper
Monday, September 8, 2025, p. 13
For the first time, this school year the Ministry of Public Education (SEP) will carry out an awareness day on the seriousness of sexual abuse and child abuse in basic level schools, whose purpose is to make visible the different forms of violence and promote a culture of care, while generating safe spaces in the schools.
The campaign called I see you, I believe you, I take care of you will consist of training and informative activities aimed at the educational community (students, management staff, teachers, parents of families and caregivers).
Although the school calendar indicates that this day will be held today, teachers and managers indicated that the activities will distribute in several days, because “it is such a broad and complex issue that it cannot be covered in a single day.”
However, teachers said they have digital manuals and not with a face -to -face training by experts in this field.
The high school teacher Eduardo Castillo regretted that they do not provide them with specialists, because “they are delicate issues and must be handled properly and with great care.”
Care guidelines and protocols
The Primary teacher Noemí Sánchez reported that on the Page of the SEP there is a section on the free school of violence, with the guidelines and the protocol for the eradication of the bullying, a guide for teachers, an infographic with advice for the victims of this problem, lines of action and informative material that they can hit on the schools.
Among the recommended activities are: organize an informative meeting or conference on the campus on key concepts such as child abuse and violence; make a mural with preventive phrases, called Hands that take care, voices that listen; An exhibition of posters or drawings My body, my right; Place a school aid map that tells students with whom they can talk to, how to ask for help and what to do before a case of violence.
This awareness day responds to the judgment of a federal judge issued in 2022 who ordered the SEP to allocate one day in the school year to talk about this issue and give a public apology for the “irregular activity of the State” in the abuses committed in the Marcelino Children’s Garden of Champagnat in 2018, where 17 children between three and five years were victims of violence and sexual abuse.
Interinstitutional effort
The director of the National System of Integral Protection of girls, boys and adolescents, Silvia Lorena Villavicencio, indicated that this agency will collaborate with the SEP both on the day of awareness and in advice to teachers to address cases and follow up.
Meanwhile, the Secretary of Women, Citlalli Hernández, said that it works together with the educational agency to generate protocols and review the existing ones, who use teachers with parents and students, in gender matters and prevention of violence
