The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) asked Chile on Monday to adopt “urgent measures to guarantee safe environments for children and adolescents” after the violent weekend that the country faced with 10 confirmed homicides, including the murder of four minors in a shooting in Quilicura.
In a statement, the organization condemned “the repeated acts of violence against children and adolescents, who have been killed or injured this year.”
UNICEF noted that “the State must be effective in protecting children and this also implies guaranteeing violence-free environments. The violent death of a child or adolescent cannot be normalized.”
The international organization noted that Chile still has time to reverse this trend and prevent homicide from becoming the main cause of death among adolescents, as occurs in other countries in the region.
“Chile has made progress in many areas related to children, such as the reduction of infant mortality, the creation of Chile Crece Contigo, the implementation of a powerful vaccination program; it cannot be that the lives of these children are then lost in adolescence,” he said.
According to UNICEF, along with preventive measures, the country “must attack the structural causes of vulnerability to violence, including poverty.”
According to the 2022 National Socioeconomic Characterization Survey (Casen), 43% (53% in the case of the Metropolitan Region) of households with children and adolescents in Chile have experienced or witnessed shootings in their residential environment.
“This information shows the context of extreme vulnerability in which many children and adolescents grow and develop. But it also shows the debt that the country has with this population group, to whom it must guarantee their development and survival,” said UNICEF.
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