The mother of a girl who committed suicide after being abused at school: "In Ecuador there was never justice for raped girls"

Petita Albarracín, mother of Paola Guzmán, victim of sexual violence in a school in Ecuador Center for Reproductive Rights

"I could never help her when she was alive because I never knew what was happening." Petita Albarracín still breaks down when talking about her daughter Paola Guzmán. "She never said anything to me because of the threats," she reproaches herself. Her daughter committed suicide at the age of 16, 18 years ago, after learning that she was pregnant with the vice-rector of her school in Guayaquil, Ecuador. The man, then 65, had been abusing a girl who was 50 years younger for more than a year. As the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has now ruled, Ecuador was not diligent enough to avoid sexual harassment or to prosecute those responsible.

In the first pronouncement of the IACHR for sexual abuse in education, the court condemned Ecuador for failing to protect a minor who "saw her rights to life, personal integrity, private life and education violated." . And it ordered the State to deliver economic reparation to Paola Guzmán's family, to clear the name of the victim - who was considered in the judicial process as a responsible party by attributing her to a seductive role - and to give a gender perspective to the educational system .

The Ecuadorian State, according to the judgment in the Guzmán case, "did not give him the necessary assistance to try to avoid his death." In addition to the fact that everyone at the school knew there was a prolonged abusive sexual relationship, the minor did not receive the proper help and committed suicide. She had ingested imp - fireworks with a high content of white phosphorus that explode when struck against the ground - and was treated in the school infirmary. There they only told her to pray that she could be forgiven for what she had done. The minor died a day later in the hospital.

The only thing that was not sufficiently proven in the case before the IACHR was that Paola became pregnant as a result of the abuse and that a clandestine abortion was performed under pressure from the vice-rector with the center's doctor, in exchange, again, for sexual favors. That was what her daughter's schoolmates told Petita Albarracín once she had died.

"My daughter was pregnant because she showed her partner a test from a private laboratory," the woman explained at the time, according to local media, when she was still dealing with the local authorities to recognize the damage caused. “He abused her trust. She maybe saw him as a superior, as a teacher. But he abused, manipulated her. My daughter was 16 and this man was 65. That's not love. When she was lying there, he must have threatened her so that she would not tell us anything. That she took to the grave, "denounced the mother.

Lita Martínez, executive director of the Ecuadorian Center for the Action and Promotion of Women CEPAM-Guayaquil, one of the promoters of the complaint, explains that an attempt was made to reach a friendly solution with the Government of Ecuador, without results. "We hope that now they do comply, but we are not credulous either," he says. The IACHR, in an unusual decision, imposed accompaniment by the Court itself and the victims in the transformation process that the country must undertake.

In addition, it holds the Ecuadorian judicial system responsible for the impunity in which the criminal process derived. "In the case of a girl victim of sexual violence, the judicial authorities should have acted with greater diligence," the sentence collects, after taking as proven that the slowness of justice paid for the person responsible for the abuse, Bolívar Espín, then vice-rector of the Martínez Serrano school in Guayaquil, escaped before a preventive detention order was issued. The crimes, finally, prescribe without penalty for the guilty.

"The investigation began in December 2002 and the statute of limitations for the criminal action was declared on September 18, 2008. Of the nearly five years and nine months that the criminal process lasted, there is no evidence of any activity," the Inter-American Court complains. to Ecuador.

Sex education in schools

One of the most “revolutionary” points of the Inter-American court ruling, according to Lita Martínez and Catalina Martínez, regional director of the Center for Reproductive Rights, is that Ecuador must introduce sexuality education into its curriculum and approach it with a gender perspective. In this way, children will be able to recognize when there are cases of abuse of an educational authority. In addition, the Court recognizes the sexual freedom of young people. "The situation is not going to change immediately because it is a process that takes years and because a transformation has to take place in public policy, culture and public opinion," admit the lawyers.

The Court introduces this requirement of the gender perspective in response to how the judicial process of the Paola Guzmán case was conducted . "The Superior Court of Justice of Guayaquil considered that there was no crime of sexual harassment, since it was not the vice-rector who 'persecuted' Paola, but it was she who requested his 'teaching favors', this being the 'principle of seduction' .

The same decision understood that the vice-rector's conduct constituted 'rape' and, when explaining this, he pointed out that in this crime the seduction is aimed at 'reaching consent and achieving carnal intercourse, with an honest woman, ”the sentence collects, which he reproaches to the Ecuadorian justice a “biased analysis based on gender preconceptions”. They led, he concludes, to attribute "implicitly (to the victim), at least partially, responsibility for what finally happened." And the "special situation of vulnerability in which she found herself because she was a girl and suffered such violence from a teacher" was never considered.

For this reason, part of the sentence against Ecuador also includes the obligation to disclose everything that happened through a public act of recognition of international responsibility. “There (at the IACHR) they did see what happened. They saw all the evidence, but here, no one paid any attention to what was happening in education: the rape and the bullying. I thank God that he still has me standing to see that justice is done with my daughter. In Ecuador there is no justice for my daughter or for all the girls who have been harassed, ”Paola's mother still questions.

Ecuador now has one year to comply with the judgment and must report its progress to the Court, which will not close the case until the country has “fully complied” with all requests.