Argentina approves the 'Lucio law' against violence and child abuse

The Argentine Senate during a session. Natacha Pisarenko (AP)

In November 2021, five-year-old Argentine Lucio Dupuy was beaten to death.

A year and a half later, the Justice sentenced her mother, Magdalena Espósito Valenti, to life imprisonment, considering her guilty of having killed Dupuy, and her girlfriend, Abigail Páez, for the same crime and also for sexual abuse.

Argentine society was outraged when it was learned that no institution detected the violence that both exerted against the child in time.

With the Lucio Law unanimously approved this Thursday in the Senate, Argentina wants to prevent this from happening again.

The regulations seek to prevent violence and abuse in childhood through training, awareness campaigns and a larger budget.

"Come on! Justice was done!" Shouted Ramón Dupuy, paternal grandfather of the murdered minor, amid applause from the chamber after the parliamentary initiative became law.

"The violence of our childhoods crosses the whole of society and challenges those of us who have institutional and political responsibilities," said Senator Daniel Bensusán, representing the pro-government Frente de Todos.

Bensuán, representative of the central province of La Pampa where Dupuy was murdered, stressed the importance of legislating on this issue so that "they stop putting [these types of events] under the rug."

Today in the Senate with the grandparents and aunts of Lucio Dupuy.

His love and commitment achieved the sanction of the Law that bears his name.

A lot of emotion.

pic.twitter.com/kOKHytVx4g

— Cristina Kirchner (@CFKArgentina) April 13, 2023

The opposition member María Belén Tapia, senator for Santa Cruz from Juntos por el Cambio (opposition), thanked the presence in the Upper House of the grandfather of the murdered minor, Ramón Dupuy, and assured that he is an example for drawing "forces from where perhaps not I knew I had them” when demanding justice for the murder of his grandson.

The law provides for the creation of a continuous and mandatory federal training plan on the rights of children and adolescents aimed at all persons who perform public functions in the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches.

The training can be extended to provincial and municipal administrations and also to social, sports, recreational and cultural organizations.

Another of the central axes of the regulation is the protection of those who report cases of violence and/or child abuse, since it obliges to guarantee "the confidentiality of the identity of the complainant and the protection of their integrity."

This point is key so that personnel from educational institutions or health centers that detect signs of abuse can sound the alert without fear of the consequences for the family.

Five emergency admissions

Dupuy was assassinated on November 26, 2021, but the beatings began much earlier without any public body intervening to stop them.

Between December 2020 and March 2021, the boy was taken to the emergency room five times at different medical centers for a broken wrist, trauma to his fingers, and a cut on his chin.

His fragile body did not resist the last blows.

He died from internal bleeding and multiple injuries caused by blows, including a fractured skull and two broken ribs.

The autopsy also revealed burn marks, bite marks and signs of abuse.

After Dupuy's death, the judge who handed over possession to Espósito Valenti was denounced for "failure to comply with the duties of a public official" for not having seen the signs of abuse that the child presented.

The father, Cristian Dupuy, had denounced that his son suffered physical and psychological violence, but even so, the judge handed over custody to his mother.

The father's family also questioned the doctors who treated him in the emergency room and the kindergarten he attended.

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