The Human Cost of Child Abuse in Mexico

Given the increase in violence against children and adolescents in the world, it is urgent to make the seriousness of the problem visible and to resume community care tasks to protect children as a matter of high priority, since they are one of the most vulnerable sectors of our society, said the professor of the School of Social Work of UNAM, Carmen Gabriela Ruiz Serrano.

In an interview, the specialist pointed out that the largest number of people under 18 years of age have been affected or related to problems such as domestic violence, child sexual exploitation, disappearances, migration, and organized crime.

Child abuse corresponds to any form of abuse or neglect that affects a minor under 18 years of age: physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse, neglect, negligence, and commercial or other exploitation that may be detrimental to their health, development, or dignity.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child, approved by the United Nations General Assembly in 1989, establishes in its article 19 that member states must adopt measures to protect children from all forms of violence, abuse, or exploitation.

According to the World Health Organization, it is estimated that every year 40 million children suffer some type of violence in the family environment; it highlights that this situation causes them suffering and also has long-term negative consequences on their physical and mental health, as well as their cognitive and social development.

It is considered a serious social problem that damages all spheres, because it perpetuates cycles of aggression and limits the potential of future generations.

Data from the United Nations Fund for Child Care indicate that Mexico is the second country in the world where the most abuses are committed against minors.

In this regard, Ruiz Serrano said that a large part of the actions considered as child abuse are perpetrated by caregivers or people who have some relationship with the girl, boy, or adolescent.

In Mexico, she said, we also experience structural violence that threatens comprehensive development, where poverty is unfortunately perhaps the greatest.

In the national territory, there are approximately 40 million people between the ages of 0 and 18, and half of them live in poverty, which means they cannot fully cover their needs; while, in the population of girls and boys of indigenous origin, nine out of ten do not manage to exercise their fundamental rights, she warned.

We have, she emphasized, a somatization in the domestic sphere where abuses can be expressed from different conditions such as omission of care, negligence, or corporal abuse as a means of upbringing, which has been proven to be far from being a disciplinary act and threatens their psychosocial progress.

For the university researcher, it is essential to promote programs of maximum care, taking as a basis some collective protection practices that have been carried out since pre-Hispanic times.

When studying what it meant for our native peoples to be a boy or a girl, I came across valuable situations; for example, that in the time of the Aztecs, girls and boys were considered beings of light.

Therefore, when a woman was known to be pregnant, the entire clan protected and cared for her under the premise that infants were a kind of connectors with the different deities, recalled Ruiz Serrano.

According to the expert, it would be very helpful to resume these practices where care is not thought of solely from the ethical relationship between mother and children, but where the role played by social support networks and community contexts can be redefined.

We also need to recover public spaces so that they can live in safe settings. We must reflect in academia on what we have stopped doing as a society to move towards their greater protection, recommended Ruiz Serrano.