UNICEF reports alarming rates of violence against children and adolescents in Mexico

Five out of 10 girls, boys and adolescents between zero and 14 years of age have been subjected to at least one form of punishment in their homes, says the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), which adds that during 2022, one in two adolescents experienced violent acts such as blows, kicks and punches.

“The violence against children and adolescents many times it finds forms as simple as a slap, a spanking or a shout and it is justified as a normal disciplinary action, but it is not; each of these manifestations has a negative impact on development and self-esteem”, mentions Unicef.

He says that in Mexico, six out of 10 children and adolescents suffer violent discipline methods from their fathers, mothers, caregivers or teachers.

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“Violence in all its forms and manifestations is unacceptable. The impact that violence has on a boy or girl is irreversible, since it undermines their emotional, psychological and cognitive development”, she specifies.

He mentions that violence in early childhood, from zero to five years of age, is usually at the hands of parents or caregivers as a method of discipline.

“This can affect brain and brain development. immune system, causing health problems which, in extreme cases, can cause premature death”, mentions UNICEF.

According to the Network for the Rights of Children in Mexico (Redim), girls and adolescent women are more affected when their rights are violated: in 2021 they represented 81.5% of the victims of family and non-family violence.

In its report Violence against children and adolescents in Mexico, it highlights that the State of Mexico was the entity in which more children and adolescents were treated in hospitals for family or non-family violence during 2021. This was also the state in which more cases of family violence were registered in the same population. The second entity in which more victims of family or non-family violence were registered in the same year was Guanajuato.

The regional coordinator of Weaving Childhood Networks in Latin America and the CaribbeanJuan Martín Pérez García, assures that the blows or shouts on the part of fathers and mothers of families or guardians are incorporated into traditional upbringing.

“In many Mexican families it is considered and justified that using violence is a loving form of corrective action, although scientific evidence shows that physical aggressions not only leave bodily traces, but also affect the mental health of children and adolescents,” says.

The United Nations Children’s Fund highlights that in Mexico there are few national data that allow a broad approach to actions related to violence in the home.

“The lack of data or a statistical record on this phenomenon increases the chances that girls, boys and adolescents will suffer violent acts on a recurring basis, and reduces the chances that their rights will be guaranteed, protected or restored”, he highlights.

In accordance with Save the Children, of the 34 countries that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Mexico ranks first in child violence or physical abuse.

“Unfortunately in Mexico we live in a patriarchal and machismo culture. For this reason, girls, boys and adolescents experience processes that they should not experience because we have not understood that violence begins to take shape in homes. And there are still sayings, like the letter with blood enters, a well-placed spanking, corrects such a thing, ”says Jesús Villalobos, who directs the civil organization Utopia.

For Villalobos, educating a child with blows “is inserting into their DNA that the solution to problems, to the difficulties that arise every day is through violence.”

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