The findings include alleged sexual, psychological and physical abuse in at least 12 shelters for children in the country. The government´s neglect towards the vulnerable and underage population has been a dominating trend for past few years in Panama. Now, a report from a commission appointed by a group of legislators digs into the horrors suffered by some children and teenagers in these shelters. What they found is just the tip of the iceberg, a source familiar with the investigation said.
By: Rekha Chandiramani
Last year, in the middle of the pandemic, a video from local website Foco exposed claims of sexual abuse taking place in a shelter located in Tocumen, a community about 30 minutes away from Panama city center. Young girls were being taken out of the shelter and sent to business men and corporate parties, according to Foco. Another report from local newspaper La Prensa expanded on the abuse claims. However, the news reports fell short for such a serious claim, so the Youth, Women, Children and Family Commission in the National Assembly appointed a committee to investigate shelters in the country.
The group was formed on August 19th, 2020 and included legislators Yesenia Rodríguez, Petita Ayarza, and Gabriel Silva, who appointed his deputy, Walkiria Chandler on his behalf.
After six months investigating, visiting 14 shelters, interviewing people and reviewing official documents, the legislators turned in the report to the Assembly a few days ago. The findings indicate that physical, emotional and even sexual abuse occurred in at least 12 shelters for children in vulnerable situations in Panama.
The nearly 100 shelters in the country are run mostly by NGO’s, private foundations and religious institutions, that receive both private donations and a considerable amount of public funds each year. The operation of these shelters is basically managed as a philanthropic cause, rather than a state responsibility supported by strong and fair public policies behind it.
Two children (15, 17) were sent to a shelter administered by an evangelical mission for drug recovering adults, alcoholics, prostitutes and homeless. Both children gave a good feedback about the persons administrating the shelter, however, one of them reported sexual harassment from another man while performing duties in the shelter´s kitchen. He told social worker Chanita Chamarra that the adult touched his intimate parts. The other child, who has special needs, said that that the pastor in charge of the shelter would deny him meals as a punishment if he saw him masturbating. Both cases were escalated by Chamarra to her supervisor in the Secretaría Nacional de Niñez, Adolescencia y Familia –SENNIAF- the office in charge of supervising children and teenagers in shelters. She underlined that this specific shelter was not adequate to take in vulnerable children, as they had to cohabitate with adult drug addicts, alcoholics, prostitutes and juvenile delinquents. A few days after submitting the complaint, the social worker was fired.
Report from the social workers about two boys that were in a shelter for adults 
From twitter account @TestigoDGoku 
and confirmed by the Assembly´s investigation team
Another social worker -Maria Victoria Pomar- was also fired when she submitted at least 15 reports of irregularities she witnessed in the Tocumen shelter, as well as in other three shelters under the administration of evangelical missions. These cases are part of the investigation that was also forwarded to the Ministerio Público, the Attorney General´s office for criminal investigations. Just a few days ago, a teenager escaped this shelter and was put back in after being found crying alone on a school roof by the authorities.
The Tocumen shelter was previously administrated by a foundation called Metroamigo, that was replaced afterwards by Centro de Atención Integral Chilibre Panama –Funchipa-. According to former Panama City Mayor, José Isabel Blandon, this center takes in children with a wide range of problems, which is not common with other shelters in the country. For this reason, they get more public funds than the others, around 600,000USD according to Blandon.
Raped young girls are forced to give birth
Alexandra (19) is a young mother now. Being a teenager, she suffered from depression and tried to commit suicide. She was given away to a friend couple by her biological mother, who couldn’t take care of her kids. Her sisters and brothers grew up in shelters while she had and adoptive family. That was about to change. She was abused by a 29 year old man when she was 14. She did not report the rape to the police and her mother did not know what to do. Alexandra –who shared her story for this report– says she did not wanted to continue with the pregnancy: she was just a 14 year old kid, confused, depressed and sexually abused. Her understanding was that in the shelter where she was sent –according to her without her mother´s knowledge– they would help her to get an abortion.
Under Panamanian law, an abortion can take place only till the second month of pregnancy and exclusively for reasons like sexual abuse (it has to be reported to the authorities first), fetal malformation and if the pregnancy puts in danger the woman’s life. It´s no secret that sexual abuse cases are underreported in Panama; that 20% of newborns have an underage mother; and that the burocracy that delays abortion process past the legal two months, pushes many young girls to give birth without being able to provide for themselves.
United Nations Organization (UN), for years now, has been urging Panamanian government to legalize abortion in all cases. But the health matter discussion always ends up wrapped in a politicial fight fueled by religious groups in the Assembly.
The shelter Alexandra was in is called Maria Guadalupe, is located in Ancón, within the city. Most of the girls were taken in after being raped, some of them by their own fathers, Alexandra recalled. They were told that abortion was not an option. That they could not kill a life that they would love the child once it was born, that the little one was not at fault. “They made us pray the Rosary even though some of the girls were not catholic”, she remembered.
If the girl wanted to give the child for adoption -Alexandra says- they were forced to stay with the newborn for six months and then give the baby for adoption, but all the gilt on top of what she saw –many of these kids are sent to another shelter- stopped them from giving the baby away. “They just blamed me, told me that I would go to hell and I didn’t have any other option”. After experiencing it, she said about the shelters scandal that it´s pshicological abuse what Senniaf and the government allows it to happen to all these girls.
The preliminary report we had access to also found that some children with special needs were denied medication, food and special attention. Some shelters were operating without the government even knowing they existed, 90% of the people working in the shelters lacked professional credentials to attend children in social vulnerability, and a lack of operation control and successful supervision by Senniaf, the office in charge of supervising the 942 children currently in shelters.
Deputy legislator, Walkiria Chandler, said while filing the complaint in the Ministerio Público, that some children were feed with dog food in some shelters.
The head of Senniaf at the time, Sara Rodriguez, a lawyer with experience in child issues who had even been at some point a consultant for the United Nations Children Fund -Unicef- left the position in January, a few days before the investigation was made public. Her deputy director, Carla García -daughter of an influential PRD party member and current vice minister in the Cortizo administration- was appointed as governor, also days before the report saw the light.
Both Senniaf and Mides (Ministerio de Desarrollo Social, which distributes the money to the shelters) issued statements. However, the words chosen were vague enough to avoid assuming direct responsibility of any kind in the abuses. García even said in a statement that her job at Senniaf was framed mostly in social activities, which triggered even more criticism. The Ministerio Publico announced there are already two investigations underway on children abuse in shelters, and a third complaint was presented along the 600+ pages report the Assembly pushed for the last months.
The Ombusdman office said they will follow the investigation and requested the full report from the Assembly. Unicef issued a press release voicing their “deep concern” about alleged children abuse in shelters, reminding authorities to leave behind “individual and corporate interests” and put children interests first. They also urged the Panamanian government to push a legal reforms and public policies for the children wellbeing in an integral manner.
Abuses are not news
The authorities saw the other way. Senniaf, which is the institution in charge of supervising children in social vulnerability, came across as a political player, as the operating and administrative teams were not working together. The response from the upper management to the social workers who reported the abuse was a dismissal letter with the most surreal justification: lack of trust.
Dismissal letter after social workers reported the irregularities in shelters 
Posted by social worker Yuri Pitti @yuripittim
Alonso Ramos, a sociologist and teacher who was part of the investigation team appointed by the legislators, said to me that the explanations given by both Rodriguez and García during the interview process could be defined as barbarian technocracy, involving huge amounts of literature and laws but zero results.
Senniaf knew about irregularities for at least three years. During the past administration of president Juan Carlos Varela, Senniaf commanded a study that was carried on by Unicef, where they reported that nearly 24.6% of the 57 shelters studied were operating without permission.
As far as temporality goes, children are expected to be in the shelter protection system for about 4 years, but the study found that due to the lack of supervision, children spent more than seven years in shelters custody. One boy, 14 years old, has spent practically his whole life (13 years) in shelters. Only 3.2% of the children were legally adoptable according to Unicef report.
Irregularities in adoption processes were previously also brought to public attention in 2016, when the then Senniaf director, Idalia Martinez, accused Sor Lourdes Reiss, a catholic nun and head of Hogar San José de Malambo, of influence peddling in adoptions. Mides –under the authority of president Varela, a very vocal catholic who even donated public funds to several churches and to the catholic school he attended as a child– announced it would investigate the claims. The incident ended when Martinez was asked to resign “for other issues and conflicts she created in Senniaf”. Martinez did not respond when reached out for comments.
The 2018 study by Unicef also concluded that 10% of the children in shelters have disabilities, 30% of the children in custody are taken in for social risk, 5.4% have alcohol or drug abuse issues and 2.7% are under arrest. Underage girls taken in after sexual abuse totalize 5.6%, due to abandonment 7.8%, physical abuse 8.5% and 6.9% for malnutrition.
There is a grey area in which these shelters operate. According to Unicef numbers, only 7% of the shelters were public in 2018. The rest of them are run by NGO´s or a figure called «patronatos». Most of them receive private donations and public money, but the amounts are not fully disclosed. Disabled children in shelters also receive a subsidy of 960USD per year, under the program «Ángel Guardián» since the past administration of President Varela. Additionally, Mides has a yearly budget of over 300 million USD, which clearly shows this is not a low budget problem.
Ramos, the sociologist part of the investigation, said that these shelters are basically warehouses for human’s beings, and they are seen as pieces of the political chess board. “The actions taken by authorities will only depend on how much pressure the people put to demand a thorough investigation», he concluded.
The Assembly will have to push integral law reforms to tackle social vulnerability of minors in the country. But the biggest challenge remains the effective application of sanctions to anyone that breaks the law.