translated from Spanish: Branislav Marelic, indh councillor, for abuses at cread center in Pudahuel: “It is most likely that this will happen in other places linked to Sename”

Branislav Marelic, lawyer and counselor of the National Institute of Human Rights (INDH), is one of the complainants along with Judge Monica Jeldres of the serious situations that occurred within the CREAD of Pudahuel and presented with the judge an appeal to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) for the violations in this sename administration center where there are complaints of a network of sexual exploitation and access to drugs. So far, the response of state institutions has been nil, as the same judge denounced in a desperate call this week in her attendance at the Senate’s Special Committee on Children’s Affairs. But even more serious is that , according to Marelic, “the most likely thing is that this will happen in other places linked to Sename.”
Interviewed at El Mostrador in La Clave, Marelic was emphatic in pointing out that “we cannot say that CREAD is the only one that has problems,” because “these children have also passed through many other homes, so the analysis of each one’s journey should also be done.”
According to Marelic, this happens because the system as a whole doesn’t work. “Many things have to be changed,” because there are many actors within the group, such as “children’s lawyers, family courts, outpatient programs,” he said.
The lawyer noted that in cases of sexual exploitation, the child “does not have an effective investigation, is not heard by the judge, and is referred to an outpatient program that is not effective.” He added that formally it can be “seen on paper that the state could have done many things, but in the execution that does not exist.”
Marelic stated that major reforms have been made within the Sename system, but that urgent cases have not been dealt with. “As a child, we have focused on major reforms going forward. But, the current situation of children, who have already been violated in the past, are in the background, they are left without a voice,” he said.
“It is not necessary just to change the service and the name,” the counselor explained because there are still children who are still in the old system, who continue to be violated. “The problem is that people look at the structure of the children’s residence, but there are also children who are in outpatient programs that are even more invisible,” he said.
“The cases that Judge Monica Jeldres analyzed are children who, even with many outpatient programs, and protection programs, continued to get worse year after year. So the question is: Do outpatient programs work?, does the Family Court serve?, because other judges who were supervising, protecting these children passed and they kept getting worse. So what’s going on?” he added.
Moreover, he recalled that the Hogar de Cristo conducted an investigation that gives an account of the networks of sexual exploitation in children’s homes, but that “even so, when the situation is so clear, nothing is done.”
 Diagnosis of Sename
The INDH advisor also notes that there are many areas that have failures in addition to the centers themselves. He explained that the health sector does not coordinate with the centers, because “many times the health centers have other criteria. The centers send children who have had major violations to hospitals and these, for other reasons, do not give them care.” This leads to children returning to the residence and “creating problems.”
The lawyer stressed that everything possible should be done to get the abused and abused children immediately admitted to hospital. But, “what happens now is that a trade is sent and responsibility is transmitted”, therefore finally it is passed “the post from one to the other”.
Marelic added that there are many children who are on the run, “it is necessary to look for the children” but the search warrants remain in the “formality and the children are not actively sought.” “These are children who have potential risk,” he said.
Then it happens that the children are found and are usually at home, but the child is re-admitted to the residence center “without any hearing,” the expert continued. So “you don’t hear the child, you don’t know why he ran away, you don’t know why he comes back. It’s very formal and automatic.”
After the case of sexual exploitation in the Sename center, one would expect to change “the children of residence”, but “the child is not heard, he does not know why he escaped, nor why he returns” to the same place, Marelic added.
The conflicts of interest of the Sename Collaborating Organizations
The lawyer added that there are many interests at stake in the NNA protection system. In this context, he pointed his gaze to “the OCAS (Collaborating Organizations of Sename)”, que are “private foundations that provide service to the State in matters of sename system, about 80% of the services that sename provides, are through the private system”. “It’s thousands of billions of pesos” in between, Marelic said.
Marelic established that outpatient services are where most money is spent, “which are medical or judicial care” and in these programs (OCAS) there are many charges about these services that in reality “are not being realized.”
The INDH advisor said that he is struck by “this disguise of civil society” that the OCAS have, because these “are interest groups, they are not civil society organizations that seek the public good, in reality they behave like providers of the State.” They have “managers who earn millions in salaries, much more than any public official,” he charged.  Among the OCAS linked to Sename, “there are good and bad,” but “the bad are the biggest,” he concluded.
 

Check out the interview of El Mostrador en la Clave here: 

Original source in Spanish