When the law speaks and the official is deaf

The penalty for the crime of Lucio Dupuy It was important and strong. Exemplary judgments are necessary to make society aware that “the one who makes them pays them” and thus have a deterrent effect on anyone who intends to commit these types of atrocities. But it would also be important for those in charge of areas as sensitive as local service, family courts and public and private hospitals, to know that anyone who does not fulfill his role in accordance with the responsibilities conferred on him by his duties and which the Act establishes , They also have penalties.

Provincial Law No. 13,298 on the integral promotion and protection of the rights of the child establishes the obligation to provide direct assistance, care and rehabilitation to children and adolescents who, for whatever reason, need special protection, especially those who are victims of abuse. as well as to avoid the occurrence of these situations.

In Pilar, province of Buenos Aires, in the midst of a pandemic, we had the Thiago case, 2 years old, a year before the Lucio case. There was also a grandfather who risked the inefficiency and indifference of elected municipal officials.

On March 19, 2021, 3-year-old boy Thiago Abel Palacios died at the Juan C. Sanguinetti Hospital in the city of Pilar, after being the victim of sexual abuse, burns and beatings. As the various media report, the boy Thiago lived with his mother, Pamela Palacios, and her partner, Mr. Ariel Farías, in the neighborhood of San Alejo.

Before the tragic outcome, Thiago’s grandfather, Mr. José V. Fleitas, who became aware of the mistreatment suffered by the child, filed the corresponding complaint, in order to protect Thiago’s integrity. The case was heard in Family Court No. 2 in charge of Dr. Silvina Galeliano.

It should be noted that at the time of filing the complaint, Fleitas presented as evidence a video he had received, which provided proof of the alleged abuse. On the occasion of the said complaint, proceedings were initiated and the Local Municipal Service was appointed to report the family situation, the response to which was: “… that this Local Service has been monitoring the family situation since 2019 and we consider only when the children are protected by their mother. Pamela attends the group of parents without violence that works in this local service. It is important to mention that the complainant, Mr. Fleitas, is the father of Mr. Elías Fleitas , who is deprived of his liberty for burning down Pamela’s house (when she was pregnant with the child Thiago Palacios) and was in the care of his parents, his daughters Perez Zoe and Alma. reference, no situation of violation of rights on the part of their mother or the current partner of this Mrs. Ariel can be inferred.The said official answer was on March 8, 11 days before the death of Thiago.

According to the autopsy carried out, the child presented signs compatible with sexual abuse, a recent severe blow to the abdominal area that caused bleeding and cigarette burns to the genitals and arms. Also, it’s been reported that some of these burns are from a while ago, so they’re trying to establish how long ago the child was abused. Clearly, the local service acted negligently since the exact opposite of what it reported to the family court judge occurred. What was said in the report seems to want to distort the statements of the plaintiff – his grandfather – pointing out that Thiago’s father was in prison.

The General Directorate of Childhood, Adolescence and Family, of the Municipality of Pilar, was created in order to comply with the objectives of the aforementioned law, and one of the three functions of the local service is to ” receive complaints and intervene ex officio when it becomes aware of the possible existence of a violation or threat to the exercise of the rights of the child”. The law provides that when a child is subjected to a threat or violation of his rights and/or is the victim of a crime, those who are aware of such a situation may request the protection or restoration of the rights concerned before the local services In the “Thiago case”, this conduct was assumed by Mr. José V. Fleitas, his paternal grandfather, who became aware of the ill-treatment suffered by the child and lodged the corresponding complaint.The aforementioned law establishes that, “as soon as the Promotion and Protection Service rights to knowledge of the request, he must convene er the child and his relatives, managers and/or relatives concerned to a hearing with the technical team of the Service. At the said hearing, they must be informed of the request made, the operation of the system for the protection and promotion of rights, the existing programs to resolve the request and its method of execution, the expected consequences, the rights of the persons whose benefits the child, the follow-up plan and the consensual nature of the decision adopted”.

Although the purpose of the regulation is to develop public policies whose main objective is the confinement of girls, boys and adolescents to the family nucleus, it must be applied to protect the best interests of the child. For this reason, the law also provides for “comprehensive measures for the protection of rights” that local services can order in the event of a threat or violation of the rights of children and/or adolescents in order to preserve or restore them.

Regulatory Decree No. 300/05 establishes that the accommodation measures referred to in paragraph h of article 35 of the provincial law, have the objective of “providing the child with an alternative environment to the coexistence group when in the latter it is threatened or actually violated their rights and guarantees until the evaluation of the implementation of other measures tending to preserve or restore them. This means that if there are serious grounds, the separation of the child from his family group is authorized, in accordance with the letter and the spirit of the law and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. One of the cases that the Convention envisages for this separation “is in cases where the child is the object of ill-treatment or neglect on the part of his parents”. The State has an obligation to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental harm or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, ill-treatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, as long as the child is in the custody of his parents, a legal representative or any other responsible person.

The regulatory decree establishes that the exceptionality of the accommodation measures envisaged in the provincial law refers to the fact that it applies only to very specific situations and in the best interests of the child and establishes that the one of them occurs “when violations of the rights of the child involve serious harm to his physical, mental and social integrity, and the need to remove him from his environment is noted while other protection strategies are evaluated”.

Cintia Maria Florence Pavanexecutive coordinator of the general direction of childhood, adolescence and family of the municipality of Pilar, said in the file of the complaint of the grandfather of Thiago, that the mother of the child frequented “the nonviolent parenting group”, it was the responsibility of the local department to take other action as required by law.

The two main questions that arise and need to be addressed are: Was the statutory hearing held in response to the grandfather’s complaint? Why, beyond the measures against the mother, was no precautionary measure taken to protect the integrity of the child until it could be determined whether the child was safe at home or not?

This negligence by the official cost Thiago his life, and she a criminal complaint, filed by the undersigned, for the crime of dereliction of duty as a public official. The media protection available to the mayor of Pilar has allowed this case not to degenerate in the national media as happened with the Lucio case.

Certainly, if the terrible and short story of Thiago had been disseminated, like his grandfather’s unsuccessful pilgrimage by different instances of the state bureaucracy, the local officials who intervened in the Lucio case would have been more attentive to take the measures appropriate to protect the child.

When the state gets it wrong or looks the other way, when officials fail to work and persist in their positions, society’s powerlessness increases and democratic promises diminish. For Thiago, Lucio and many other abused and invisible children, let us act with appropriateness, social sensitivity and responsibility.

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