Social investment

Social investment

Investing in chidren in local governments

Investing in chidren in local governments

Protection

Protection

Against sexual abuse and exploitation

Against sexual abuse and exploitation

Fiscal Policy Observatory

Fiscal Policy Observatory

 

Protection

One of the goals for UNICEF is to promote the right of children and adolescents to protection from abuse.  The first milestone was reached in 2003, when Ecuador approved the Code for Children and Adolescents based on the Convention of the Rights of the Child.   Today the Code is applied through a national system on integral protection. The National Board of Children and Adolescents is the nucleus.  While the Code dictates national policies, plans and programs, forty-seven boards already operating within local governments execute the policies locally and account for it with their own budgets. Several other boards are being created.

UNICEF also supported the process that led to the reform of the Ecuadorian Penal Code in 2005. It incorporated into Ecuadorian legislation crimes that previously held no penalty: human trade, sexual tourism, child pornography and sexual crimes—crimes committed daily against children and adolescents. The Code recognizes now that the consent of a child in these crimes is irrelevant, and punishes the client of sexual tourism. The reform also succeeded in elevating the severity of the penalty if the offender cultivated confidence and used it to take advantage of the child.

Today the penalties for such offenses can add up to thirty-five years in prison, and the victim has the possibility of reporting the offense up to fifty years after the crime was committed. Also, the circumstance that a person older than sixty cannot be incarcerated for sexual crimes has been eliminated.