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Manuela PicqManuela Picq has just completed her time as a visiting professor and research fellow at AmherstCollege.

A much needed International Day of the Girl

Girls are the most vulnerable to violence and their security cannot be treated as an afterthought, writes

Picq.

Last Modified: 11 Oct 2012 06:55

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School-related violence undermines girls' physical and psychological well-being, often causing them to drop out andhindering their educational achievement [EPA]It costs US $292 to rape a child in Ecuador. That is the monthly pension a school director who sexually abused andimpregnated a 12-year-old pupil was required to pay.

Sexual violence against girls often goes unpunished. The fact that in this case the accused is the father of agovernment minister accentuated judicial impunity. Defenders of the girl accuse the government of silencing the case

(notably threatening the denouncers), whilst the government says the opposition is using the case to attack membersof its cabinet.

Officials invoked presumed innocence until proven guilty, but lawyers contend that the penal code reverses the burdenof proof in cases of child rape -and claim the government should rather presume innocent the 11 youth jailed withoutsubstantial proof in the Luluncoto case.

Beyond Ecuadorian politics, this case is symptomatic of the prevailing violence against girls worldwide. Today is thefirst observance of the UN International Day of the Girl Child. If we are serious about increasing freedom to promotedevelopment, we should advance girls' rights. Governments are very efficient at protecting national security. It's abouttime they protect the security of nationals: girls.

Glas Viej: School director and rapist

For a year, Jorge Heriberto Glas Viej sexually abused the 12-year-old daughter of a long-term domestic worker. The77-year-old man sponsored the education of the child at the Hans Christian Andersen School, which he directed, andused his authority to regularly pull the girl out of classes to "take her to the doctor", driving to a motel.

He never signed protocols, no teacher ever objected, andthe mother never knew anything. The girl said that herrapist threatened to kill her mother if she talked and theabuse went on for months. It is only when she passed outin school that medical exams revealed she was pregnant.

A year-long criminal investigation ensued. Viej was

arrested on September 28, 2011. The accused admittedtaking the girl from class, medical examination confirmedthe child's story, and although the law requires suspects of

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Afghanistan improves standards forwomen and girls

child rape to be kept until proven innocent, he wasimmediately released for "lack of flagrancy" (which wouldimply to catch the rapist in the act, which legally does notapply to a 12-year-old who is already pregnant).

He fled, unaccounted for since then. The all too commonfailure to punish violence against girls was amplified by thepolitical power of the accused. Another prosecutor on thecase, Diana Cueva Limones obstructed the criminalinvestigation, notably dismissing proof of DNA andattempting to revoke the charges.

As rapes often are, this case is embedded in powerinequalities, socio-economic as well as political. First,Viej raped the child of his subaltern, a low-income single-mother living in rudimental conditions. He abused a girl of lower social class whose education he sponsored in aninstitution he directed.

Second, the accused benefits from political authority as the father of the minister coordinating non-renewableresources and strategic sector, aggravating gender and class inequalities in access to just ice.

Threats and economic pressure almost had the mother abandon the case. Fired from her job, with her two childrenexpelled from school and a newborn to care for, the mother started peeling garlic to afford the $30 monthly rent.

The case would have gone unnoticed was it not for coverage by El Universo, the pariah newspaper of Ecuador, stirringup feminist networks and the pro-bono support from the Bar Association of Guayas. Pedro Granja, one of the fivelawyers on the case, denounced the immobility of the criminal procedures starting a second lawsuit for the recognitioof paternity and a pension.

The insecurity of being a girl

The Viej case is, sadly, neither rare nor specific to Ecuador. According to UN Women, half of sexual assaultsglobally are committed against girls under 16. The World Health Organisation estimates that in 2002 alone, 150million girls under the age of 18 suffered some form of sexual violence.

In the US, 83 per cent of girls experienced some form of sexual harassment in public schools, and Canadianstatistics reveal that 64 per cent of all reported sexual assaults are against children.

Girls are sexually abused by school-principals, teachers and classmates. Medical research conducted by HumanRights Watch in South Africa found that almost 38 per cent of victims identified a schoolteacher or principal as theirrapist. Schools are not exactly safe places for girls.

The pervasiveness of violence against girls led the United Nations to declare the International Day of the Girl. In thewake of the 2006 Secretary-General Study on Violence Against Children, the UN appointed a Special Representativeon the issue, and in 2009 the International Girl Child Conferencein The Hague stressed the importance of genderinequalities among children. The failure to respond to violence against girls expresses the political tolerance vis--vissuch crimes and international efforts are increasingly geared at changing social inertia.

School-related violence undermines girls' physical and psychological well-being, often causing them to drop out and

hindering their educational achievement. In the long run, violence against girls impacts women's self-esteem, agencyand empowerment into adulthood.

Girls who drop out of school will be more vulnerable socio-economically and more likely to submit to domesticviolence later in life. They will also be less likely to become political leaders. If we want more women running forelections, as Ecuadorian political parties do, we must make schools safer environments for girls. Women'sempowerment begins with girls' empowerment.

Girls' rights as high politics

Violence against girls is not small stuff to be brushed under the carpet, but a matter of high politics. It is indeedthrough the small stories that big ones come to light. In the case of Ecuador, this means the impunity in thisindividual case betrays a larger problem of access to justice. The opposition claims the Viej case is symptomatic of

a discretionary justice, where law is inaccessible to citizens and members of the government are untouchable.

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Source: Al Jazeera

Beyond Ecuador, this case shows the collective silence that permits rape. From school-teachers to police officers,people looked the other way. The management of the motel where Viej drove so many times videotaped all hisentrances - now evidence in the criminal prosecution - never denounced the pedophile during the year he used theirrooms.

Even women were accomplices in the case, from the state prosecutor who obstructed the criminal investigation to thefemale ministers who did nothing to secure accountability (notably the Minister of Justice Johanna Pesantez). It takesa village to rape a woman. Viej's pedophilia was backed by the silent support of a large community.

Ultimately, the permissibility of sexual violence against girls showcases the validity of a government. How good arepolicies that exist in theory but fail to protect the rights of the most vulnerable in practice? The dismissal of violenceagainst girls reveals priorities in defining security agendas.

Governments are very efficient when it comes to bringing to justice threats to its own interests - national security -whether it is Bradley Manning in the US or indigenous leaders fighting extractive industries in Peru. Ecuador'sgovernment has had no difficulty in suing its political opposition, sentencing to jail indigenous leaders for defendingwater rights and journalists for inappropriate reporting. Girls' rights, in contrast, run low on security agendas.

It is high politics to protect the rights of girls because it is the major form of violence taking place daily across theworld. Girls are the most vulnerable to violence and their security cannot be treated as an afterthought. They are at thecore of national security if we want to build safer, healthier and more creative societies. The alternative, staying silent,implies we will be nothing less than accomplices to Viej.

Manuela Picq has just completed her time as a visiting professor and research fellow at Amherst College.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial

policy.