According to a report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), adolescent women are the main victims of these attacks.
The study “Analysis of the situation of youth rights in Panama”, published last December, supports the prosecutor’s own data, which ensure that in 2021 they registered 5,969 victims of crimes against freedom and sexual integrity.
Of that total, the report adds, 65 percent were people under the age of 18 and 92 percent of the victims under the age of 18 were women.
With this in mind, UNICEF recommended updating the multisectoral strategy to prevent violence against children and young people and developing guidelines for the prevention and treatment of abuse, sexual harassment, early associations and other harmful practices.
For his part, the MP pointed out that sexual harassment was among the types of crime with the greatest increase, followed by possession of child pornography and paid relationships with minors.
In this regard, he indicated that in mid-2022 five people were tried for their alleged involvement in the crime of child pornography following a joint operation by this department and the National Police.
It was an international operation called “Light in Childhood” that was being developed in the country simultaneously in the provinces of Panama, Chiriquí and Panama West, the source added.
On January 24, the Chiriquí (West) regional prosecutor’s office, through the Barú sub-regional agency, arrested five people, four men and one woman, as part of Operation Horizons, allegedly linked to sex crimes against minors, according to La Pressa newspaper .
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