Selected Translations from Tertulia
January 19, 2002

Panama
Mothers and Grandmothers Before Their Time

Panama, January 16, 2002 (Brenda Tejeira/SEM/Tertulia). Grandmothers before they're 30, mothers at the age of 12. Panama is facing severe economic consequences, while these child-mothers believe that it's just another game.

Manuela is shy, but her boyfriend, Juan, is more outgoing. The two are classmates. Barely 14 years old, Manuela is pregnant. Though still a child herself, she will have to give up her studies so that she can care for her own child. Now in her fourth month of pregnancy, it is unlikely that Manuela will continue with her schooling, despite her comment in a quite voice that "next year I will try to return to school".

Specialists say that common consequences of early pregnancy are unfinished studies and an unstable home life, because the of the tendency for the young mother to stay single and establish ephemeral relationships. Of the 9,730 births in this area in the year 2001, 20%, or 1,965, were unwanted pregnancies of minors, according to the data proportioned by the Regional Direction of the Ministry of Health. Nothing indicates that the situation is going to change.

Translated by Jaycie Fidel

Guatemala
1990-2001: 55 Murders of Street Children

Guatemala City, January 16, 2002 (Jg-la/Cerigua/Tertulia). Of the 500 cases of human rights violations of street children that have been presented by the Guatemala Alliance House to the court system, only 14% have been resolved, meaning that 86% remain unpunished, according to Hector Dionisio, an attorney and coordinator of the institution's legal program.

According to Dionisio, between 1990 and 2001, an average of five boys, girls or teenagers living on the streets were murdered each year, a total of 55 violent deaths. More than 80% of these cases have never been investigated or the investigations have been very slow.

Among the abuses suffered by children and teens who live on the streets, the most common is sexual abuse by strangers or family members, as well as beatings, homicide, forced labor and even anomalies in adoptions, according to Dionisio.

He added that the capital city has the highest rate of abuse, but that Coban, Peten, Retalhuleu, Escuintla, Malacatan and Tecun Uman in San Marcos, as well as Antigua in Sacatepequez, also report violations of street childrens' rights.

So far the Alliance House has two cases they consider major successes. One is Nahaman Carmona, a 13-year-old street child who died in March 1990 after being beaten by four national police officers. The officers were tried and sentenced to 12 years in prison, and the family was compensated for the loss of their child.

The other case occurred in Bosques de San Nicolas, where four children were tortured and murdered by national police officers in 1990. After many years, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (CIDH) ruled that the country of Guatemala was responsible for the crimes, and in doing so, "closed the circle of impunity", according to Dionisio.

According to Dionisio, there are more than 3,500 children and teens living on the streets of Guatemala. There are no laws or rules protecting them in case someone violates their rights, which is why it is necessary that there be a Code for Children and Youth.

Translated by Pam Edwards

Australia
Pedophile Arrested in Honduras is Sentenced to
Thirty Years' Prison

San Jose, Costa Rica, January 15, 2002
(Casa Alianza/Tertulia). Robert "Dolly" Dunn, a 61-year old Australian pedophile, who was arrested in Tegucigalpa, Honduras in 1998, was recently sentenced in Australia to 30 years' prison without possibility of parole. He was found guilty of 24 out of 90 counts of sexual abuse committed between 1986 and 1995 on Australian boys between the ages of 7 and 15 years old.

In 1996 Dunn fled Australia for Indonesia where it was reported he also sexually abused young boys. In October 1997, Dunn, who has admitted being a "lover of young boys," moved to Honduras where he spent time in La Ceiba, Trujillo, Roatan, Olanchito, Tela and San Pedro Sula. According to his passport, Dunn also traveled to Antigua, Guatemala.

In 1998 he was managing a pizzeria at the California Hotel in the tourist city of Copan, Honduras. According to an Australian ABC-TV station interview, Dunn hired boys between the ages of 10 and 12 to work in his restaurant and then would sexually abuse them before firing them. He was never charged with child abuse in either Honduras or Guatemala.

In a police operation by the Federal Australian Police and the State Police of New South Wales where Dunn lived, and in coordination with Honduran authorities, the pedophile was arrested in Tegucigalpa where he was deported by the Honduran immigration authorities. He was taken to the U.S. and then extradited to Australia.

Dunn, a science teacher, was sentenced to 30 years' prison by a New South Wales district court, without possibility of parole, basically condemning him to die in prison.

For more information, contact Jose Manuel Capelin, national director of the Honduras Alliance House, at:
Email: info@casa-alianza.org
Telephone: (504) 237-1750 in Honduras.

Translated by Pam Edwards

Costa Rica
Law Regarding Spousal Abuse is
Declared Unconstitutional

San Jose, January 18, 2002 (SEM/Tertulia). The Fourth District Court of Costa Rica again declared as unconstitutional the Law Penalizing Violence Against Women. The law had been approved on the first vote by the Legislative Assembly last year. There continues to be in the country more deaths of women perpetrated by husbands, ex-husbands and boyfriends.

"Not a single death more," read the signs carried by women late last year in San Jose, demanding the "immediate approval" of the law specifically establishing as a crime the murder of women. Barely half a month into the new year, the national newspapers reported the first woman murdered by her husband. She had been buried alive in her own home.

This case "emphasizes the need to approve the law because without it we are going to continue experiencing these violent crimes," said the Minister of the Status of Women, Zinia Carvajal, after learning of the decision of the Fourth District Court which declared it unconstitutional for the second time in less than three months.

Translated by Pam Edwards

Panama
Clinic to "Cure Machismo"

Panama City, January 14, 2002
(Brenda Tejeira/SEM/Tertulia). The Abused Women's Support Center of Panama (CAMM) is promoting a program called the "Masculinity Clinic," which is nothing more than a series of psychological workshops for abusive men. Its objective is to reinforce and complement the therapy provided by the center to women victims of family violence.

The clinic proposes to "cure machismo" by having the patients look into their past in order to understand and change their current behavior, explained the coordinator of the clinic, Eugenio Melendez. The Abuser Support Group (GAO), which is sponsored by the clinic, has a 70% effectiveness rate, according to Melendez. The regular programs of CAMM strive to raise the self-esteem of battered women and to teach them their rights.

Translated by Pam Edwards

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