The initiative is part of the alliance of the NNAPES Platform with the Inter-American Institute for Children and Adolescents of the OAS (IIN-OEA), who have been working together for five years in the incidence and visibility of the problem of children and adolescents with adult references deprived of liberty.
The course, called Protection, promotion and fulfillment of the rights of children and adolescents with caregivers deprived of liberty, already has 5 editions in its Spanish version and has trained more than 100 operators of the protection, justice and penitentiary in 17 countries of the region.
At the launch of the training, Gonzalo Salles, representative of the Executive Secretariat of the NNAPES Platform, highlighted that this course will make it possible to reach actors, governments and countries that would otherwise be very difficult to reach, and also added that it will make it possible to put the topic on the agenda in countries where this topic is still invisible.
For his part, Víctor Giorgi, Director General of the IIN, mentioned the impacts that having one of their relatives deprived of liberty generates for children and adolescents, which include multiple violations, psychological and emotional affectation, assumption of adult roles and discrimination in their environments, among others. “The state as a whole must assume the need to minimize the damage,” said Giorgi regarding the responsibility of the states in the development of public policies aimed at this population.
Olu Olgunlade, a young member of the Youth Action Council of the Osborne organization, participated in the event, who told her story with a family member deprived of liberty and how sharing her experience with other people who were going through the same situation helped her. Among his recommendations for people who work with children and adolescents with adult references deprived of their liberty, he stressed the importance of taking into account that this is an extremely sensitive issue for them and that this should be a strategic point in all the actions.
From the Committee on the Rights of the Child, Professor Ann Skelton highlighted that this problem is of great interest to the Committee and valued the work of civil society to make the issue visible. Likewise, he stressed that this training will allow other actors to replicate these practices and for the issue to be installed on the agendas.
“In Canada we don’t know how many NNAPES there are,” said Vivienne Chin, Senior Associate at the International Center for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy in Vancouver, Canada. Along the same lines as Skelton, Chin valued the work of social organizations as representatives of the voices of children and adolescents and also highlighted their role as watchdogs of state actions.
These words are part of the story of Estefanny, a young woman from Uruguay and representative of the NNAPES Platform, who told her story in the conversation dedicated to the problem of children and adolescents with adult references deprived of liberty, within the framework of the Commemorative Days for the 10 years of the Legal Research Institute of the University of Chiapas.
The instance was organized by researcher Corina Giacomello, member of the Institute’s Criminal Policy Research Group. Giacomello commented that this “is an issue that is quite invisible, we only think of the person who is deprived of liberty, we rarely turn to see the families that are made up of children and adolescents supported by female caregivers.”
“The deprivation of liberty means the deprivation of childhood,” said Chiara Altafil, research director at Global Campus Human Rights (Venice, Italy), who also participated in the discussion and presented the global study on childhoods deprived of liberty.
This study seeks to reconcile the exercise of rights with the criminal justice system, from pretrial detention, sentencing, separation and reinsertion, Altafil said.
Among its conclusions, the research indicates that strict regulations are not effective because they do not allow careful evaluation between the different interests that are at stake on a case-by-case basis, for which many problems could be avoided if non-custodial measures are applied.
From the NNAPES Platform, in addition to Estefanny, Luciano Cadoni, representative of Church World Service Latin America and the Caribbean, participated, who presented the work that the coalition has been doing, at the regional level, in terms of good practices in advocacy and awareness of the theme.
“There is a lot to be done, there is a lot of pain, a lot of violence, a lot of actions and a lot of losses that could be mitigated if there were actions that were taken in due time and if those who have to do things do them,” said Cadoni.
Estefanny: A story of resilience
Estefanny lived her adolescence marked by her father’s imprisonment. At the age of 15, he had to stop studying, take care of his younger brother and dedicate himself to providing for his family, since his mother was ill and died shortly after his father was imprisoned. In addition to this, in the absence of her mother, she was also the one who had to follow her father’s case at the judicial level.
“We did not receive any help from the State, my mother was sick and could not work and we began to support ourselves with garbage collection, which my father used to do, and since he was deprived of liberty I had to do it with a neighbor. the neighborhood,” he recalled.
The young woman expressed that it was from the support of the organization Gurises Unidos that they were able to get ahead. “I learned what a psychologist was thanks to Gurises Unidos,” he said, adding that his brother also had help at an educational level. Even the organization managed the possibility so that they could visit their father after the death of their mother.
“Today I speak it with tremendous naturalness, because I already lived it, I accepted it and I got over it, but at that moment you wanted to go because he was your father and you hadn’t seen him for a week, but you didn’t want to go because they treated you horrible and you had no privacy,” he commented on the difficult time of prison visits.
Her father is currently free, however, his passage through that site affected him in such a way that it caused a break in the bond between father and daughter: “When he came out, the relationship distanced a bit, we did not have the same trust, we had more conflicts, he didn’t get a job, he had to go back to collecting garbage, the state didn’t give him anything.”
Despite all the difficulties she has had to live through, Estefanny and her brother have come out ahead: “Today I am proud of him, because he was able to finish studying, he works, he is a father, he gives me that peace of mind that things were done well and that we were both able to go our separate ways despite what we went through 10 years ago.”
For her, it is essential that states develop specific policies that allow addressing this situation from the moment of the arrests until the departure and reintegration of family members. In this sense, better conditions for visits must be achieved, as well as financial and psychological support for families in the process of depriving their relatives of liberty. It is also important that judicial processes be expedited, since families have the right to know how long their relatives will be deprived of liberty.
The initiative included 150 members of the Guatemalan Penitentiary System, who received a workshop on “Protocol for specialized care for girls, boys and adolescents with relatives deprived of their liberty in the different preventive detention centers and sentencing by the Directorate General of the Penitentiary System”.
The objective of this workshop was to strengthen the knowledge and capacities of prison employees in order to guarantee the rights of children and adolescents in the framework of their work and professional performance.
The initiative is part of the legal effects contained in the judgment of file No. 01174-2020-0649 of the special process for the comprehensive protection of children and adolescents threatened or violated in their human rights.
The proposal was divided into four modules. In the first, the background, legal basis, and concepts of the subject were addressed, while in the second, judgment, guiding principles, and responsible actors were discussed. During the third module, the protocols and procedures for the care of girls and boys from 0 to 4 years of age who cohabit with their parents deprived of liberty were addressed. And in the fourth module, we worked on the protocols and procedure for general visits of girls, boys and adolescents in detention centers.
During the activity, representatives of the Colectivo Artesana, the National Civil Police and the Penitentiary System participated. The activity was carried out with the support of the Artisan Collective and Unicef.
An agreement was recently signed between ACIFAD, CWS and the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the City of Buenos Aires (Argentina) to ensure the guarantees of children and adolescents who have adult references deprived of liberty (NNAPES ) in legal and judicial proceedings involving their relatives.
In 2016, during the production of the documentary Desinvisibilizar, one of the protagonists commented after finishing the interview: “I share my story with you, but I hope this helps something happen.”
That sentence resonated with those who heard it and it became, like many other things that children and adolescents who have adult deprived of liberty (NNAPES) have said, into an “objective to follow”. , that something happens….
Today, years later, and thanks to the work carried out jointly with ACIFAD in local and national spaces, it could be said that “something happened” or is beginning to happen.
Since CWS began to support and lead actions to generate knowledge, visibility and influence on children and adolescents who have adult references deprived of liberty together with ACIFAD and the rest of the organizations that make up the NNAPES Platform , one of the main objectives was to get the issue incorporated into the agenda of decision makers and those in charge of protecting and ensuring the rights of children and adolescents in general.
The signing of the agreement between ACIFAD, CWS and the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the City of Buenos Aires (Argentina), on March 21, is a great step in this search, since the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPT) has as its mission “the control of legality of procedures, promotion of access to justice and respect, protection, promotion and satisfaction of the rights and guarantees of girls, boys and adolescents (NNA) and people who require support for their mental health “of the City from Buenos Aires.
Until now, the MPT focused mainly on protecting the rights of children and adolescents who were victims, witnesses or those who came into conflict with the law. Now, this organization also included the issue “NNAPES” as an axis on its agenda. Before, these cases were dealt with, but only in particular situations in which someone referred them to the agency.
In this process, the support of Dr. Noris Pignata, Tutelary Adviser before the Chamber of Appeals for Criminal, Juvenile Criminal, Misdemeanor and Offenses of the MPT, was crucial. She helped make this happen with the conviction that: “If a State makes a legitimate decision, but that causes damage to third parties who are not those directly involved, the State must take all precautions or precautions so that this impact, in this case, in the children of the people who are deprived of their liberty, be the smallest possible…”
In relation to what it means for the MPT to take the issue as a strategic axis, she commented: “This means that all MPT consultancies are going to have to have a general criterion of action in all these cases and in all instances.” Then he added: “This criterion may have steps to follow, such as: identifying the children, understanding the situations, making proposals in the process, articulating actions with other non-judicial agencies of the State (from the City of Buenos Aires) so that all the rights of these children and adolescents are not violated and/or are guaranteed and/or, if necessary, initiate judicial actions such as protection for housing, educational scholarships or similar matters”.
Added to the above, the idea is also to begin to ensure the rights of these children during the process of execution of the adult sentence; so that your best interest and your opinions are taken into account. “This is something that, in general, does not happen and that little by little we will try to change, since unfortunately, in many cases, the principle of the “non-transcendence of the sentence” is not followed.
Beyond attending to particular cases and accompanying these processes, the idea is that other activities are carried out based on the agreement, among which the generation of knowledge and statistics on the subject stand out, in coordination with other actors (judicial and non-judicial). , the sensitization and training of community workers, police personnel and other professionals (teachers, for example) who work with these children and the coordination of actors with other organizations of civil society and the State in the country.
In this sense, Dr. Pignata mentioned that for her what is interesting is: “that the issue be mainstreamed within the MPT and that not only those who work in the judicial system attend to the matter, but also that the multidisciplinary teams that work in the field with other issues of access to law and in articulation with an infinity of actors from different jurisdictions, also have it as a priority”.
Finally, he highlighted the importance and relevance that the work of CWS, together with ACIFAD and the NNAPES Platform, has had in recent years: “You have given entity and importance to those who were invisible,” he said, “you have developed a general view and if you like, regional view of the issue and its impacts, which is very different from me seeing it alone in a case and presenting it that way. Because we look at it from within the criminal process, but you see how these judicial processes have an impact on the lives of these children and adolescents who, until now, have never been heard. You have put them, and their families, in a place of equals”.
Last week the first work meeting was held within the framework of the project, which is expected to reach, accompany and support all the NNAPES who live in the City of Buenos Aires and also serve as a model for other jurisdictions both in Argentina and in the region.
On behalf of the NNAPES Platform, adolescents Cruz Jiménez (Proyecto Caminante, Dominican Republic) and Manuel Fleitas (Gurises Unidos, Uruguay) participated in the forum Suffering in the Shadows: The Impact of Drug Imprisonment on Family Members .
The event was organized by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), with the collaboration of ChurchWorld Service, the International Drug Policy Consortium, RIMUF, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mexico and our NNAPES Platform.
The adolescents gave their testimonies about the change generated in their lives and in the lives of their family, having an adult reference deprived of liberty.
Cruz made recommendations to improve Dominican prisons, while Manuel told about the process to obtain his mother’s house arrest. This sentence marked an unprecedented event for Uruguayan jurisprudence and was possible thanks to the advocacy work of civil society together with the protection of the country’s social policies.
At present, the deprivation of liberty for crimes of micro-trafficking particularly affects women and their children, deepening the situation of vulnerability in which they already found themselves.
“Prison always transcends the family and those outside have to take charge. You have to work double to provide food to the person who is imprisoned, you have to have time to go to court and also how we accompany our children in this matter”, said Andrea Casamento, member of the Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture of Nations United States, and also, director of ACIFAD and member of RIMUF.
Lucía Alvarado from CAIFAM (Mexico), also a member of the Red de Mujeres Familiares, expressed that the costs are high, since the families have to bring everything they need so that the relatives deprived of their liberty survive, in addition, they they experience situations of vulnerability when they are checked by prison staff. “Most of us are women, we are stigmatized and discriminated against, both by custody personnel and in the courts,” she remarked.
Along the same lines, Cruz commented that he would like prisons to improve, and that there would be metal and substance detectors so that no one has to go through the screening experience. The adolescent also made recommendations on the raids and the moment of detention of the relatives.
Regarding these issues, Casamento commented that being part of the Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture has allowed him to introduce aspects that the body itself was not contemplating: “I tell them, ‘do you talk to the relatives in line?’ ‘Oh, we hadn’t met noticed’. The collateral effects of the penalty are beginning to enter international organizations. We have to take the voices to these organisms so that these problems are known”.
For his part, Manuel told about the process to obtain house arrest for his mother, in which the Best Interest of the Child was highlighted. “The separation was not only possible with my mother, but also with my brothers, since we did not know where we could end up,” Manuel said.
Regarding the house sentence, Colleta Youngers, Principal Advisor of WOLA, commented that “it can also be very limiting, since there are difficulties that women find themselves if they cannot carry out activities to support the family, if they cannot work, they it makes it difficult for them to be a mother” and urged to think beyond home measures.
The purpose of the course called “Protection and Differentiated Care between children and adolescents with relatives deprived of liberty” is to provide care with a rights-based approach to children and adolescents from the Penitentiary System and the National Civil Police in the time of visits to prisons.
It is an initiative of the Colectivo Artesana with the support of Unicef and the Swedish Embassy. “For us it is a great satisfaction, it has been 15 years of work and we are seeing how this process that we had already been working on is being institutionalized, but that it was possible to specify and advance through the sentence reached in the Court,” said Andrea Barrios, director of Colectivo Artesana at the launch of the course, adding that while civil society organizations can contribute, it is important that the State assume responsibility.
More than 600 officials of the Penitentiary System and the National Civil Police will be receiving the training, which will be virtual and will last 4 weeks, where topics such as the rights of children and adolescents and the implementation of sentences will be addressed.
Also participating in the event were the Director of the Penitentiary System, Luis Rodolfo Escobar; the Deputy Director of Studies and Doctrine, Juan Antonio Aguilar Alfaro; the Magistrate of the Supreme Court of Justice, María Eugenia Morales; and the Judge of First Instance for Children, Juan Orlando Calderón.
For his part, Escobar stated that “this training will contribute to the axis of prison transformation in favor of children and adolescents.” In turn, Alfaro indicated that the course will strengthen the capacities of Crime Prevention personnel to improve the treatment of children and adolescents who visit their relatives, as well as to give them decent treatment.
Se trata de una serie de cuatro capítulos realizada junto al canal argentino Pakapaka que contó con la participación de niños, niñas y adolescentes con referentes familiares privados de libertad.
