The Ecuadorian government's measures to respond to sexual violence in schools have not progressed at the scale and pace needed to ensure that all children are safe, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Despite commitments and measures by government institutions, sexual violence remains endemic in Ecuador's schools and finding justice is often elusive for survivors.
The 60-page report, "'Like Patchwork': Ecuador's Slow Progress Tackling and Preventing School-Related Sexual Violence," documents significant gaps in the government's response to prevent and tackle abuses in Ecuador's education system. Many schools still fail to report abuses or fully implement required protocols. Judicial institutions do not adequately investigate or prosecute sexual offenses against children, affecting survivors' ability to find justice.
"Against a backdrop of insecurity, hundreds of children experience school-related sexual violence in Ecuador's schools," said Katherine La Puente, children's rights coordinator at Human Rights Watch. "Ecuador's response and prevention measures are not commensurate with the scale and urgent need to carry out its zero-tolerance commitment against school-related sexual violence."
Human Rights Watch conducted 68 interviews with representatives of civil society organizations, lawyers, activists, experts, children's rights defenders, and government officials in Ecuador. Human Rights Watch also reviewed and analyzed data on reported cases, investigations, and prosecutions of sexual violence provided by the Ministry of Education, the Attorney General's Office, and the Judiciary Council.
Sexual and gender-based violence is a longstanding, pervasive problem in Ecuador's schools. Over the last decade, 6,438 cases of sexual violence by teachers, school authorities, other school staff, janitors, and other students have been reported, affecting 7,303 children. In the last four years alone, between January 2020 and June 2024, Education Ministry data shows 2,827 cases. From January 2014 to June 2024, supplemental data provided by the Ministry shows bus drivers were reported abusers in 78 cases, raising the total number to 6,516. Barriers to reporting and a focus on protecting schools' reputations over a child's best interests lead to significant underreporting.
Increased levels of insecurity and violence in recent years, along with remote learning in response to pandemic or emergency-related school closures, have hampered government institutions' ability to detect and respond to cases of sexual violence. Ecuadorian children's rights groups and UN experts have sounded the alarm on the impact that the recent levels of violence have on children and their rights.
In June 2020, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled against Ecuador in Paola Guzmán Albarracín v. Ecuador, the court's first case on school-related sexual violence. The Court ordered the government to take specific steps to prevent, address, and eradicate sexual violence in schools. These measures include improving detection and reporting of cases; training education staff regarding treatment and prevention; information, assistance and attention to victims and their families; and regularly updated statistical information.
Since 2020, Ecuador has taken significant steps to tackle sexual violence in schools and to expedite justice for survivors. The Public Policy to Eradicate Sexual Violence in Schools, which includes anticipated actions through 2030, coordinates the government's approach for prevention, response, generation of information, and survivors' access to justice and reparations.
In October 2023, the Education Ministry issued a National Strategy on Comprehensive Sexuality Education, also through 2030, requiring its application in all schools across the country. The government has also engaged in other inter-ministerial efforts to eradicate sexual violence in schools. Even with these important steps, there remain significant gaps in the government's response and its compliance with the Inter-American Court's orders, Human Rights Watch said.
Despite protocols requiring school staff to report cases of sexual violence, many cases go unreported. Human Rights Watch found that staff do not always know about or follow through with the Education Ministry's binding protocols; that they may prioritize school prestige and reputation over the need to protect students, reduce abuse, and hold abusers accountable; and that there is a significant shortage of student welfare teams, including school psychologists and counselors. Budget cuts to initiatives for responding to school-based sexual violence have likely hampered their impact.
While the Ecuadorian government has made important advances in the roll-out of its strategy and curriculum, education authorities have often faced pushback and resistance on methodologies and tools developed to teach CSE. Some teachers and parents have objected to learning the material and teaching subjects, such as adolescent pregnancy prevention. Teachers and schools sometimes neglect topics such as gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity in school discussions, even though these are key concepts to understand sexual and reproductive health and to prevent sexual violence.
Human Rights Watch also found serious concerns about Ecuador's judicial system, including limited expertise in dealing with cases of sexual and gender-based violence against adolescents and other children, a shortage of prosecutors countrywide, and limited availability of experts, such as psychologists, doctors, and sign language interpreters. Significant delays in judicial proceedings often mean that survivors wait years for cases to be concluded.
These concerns are compounded by the effects of a 2021 Constitutional Court ruling that found a teacher's dismissal for sexual harassment of a student was disproportionate to his offense. Following the ruling, courts have reinstated at least 23 teachers whom the Education Ministry had found responsible for sexual violence.
The Ecuadorian government should adequately fund its prevention efforts and ensure that institutions are able to hire and fill in gaps in essential educational and prosecutorial staff, Human Rights Watch said. The government should ensure that judicial institutions effectively investigate and prosecute all cases of school-related sexual violence.
"The Ecuadorian government should reaffirm its commitment to decisively address sexual violence in schools," La Puente said. "To effectively eradicate sexual violence in schools, Ecuador needs to end impunity and complicit behaviors that subject thousands of children to abuses and undermine children's right to be safe in school."
