Summary

The same acts of sexual violence that Paola Guzmán suffered more than 20 years ago are still happening to other girls in schools around the country.

– Ammy, leader, Movimiento Por Ser Niña, June 2024

Sexual and gender-based violence is a long-standing, pervasive problem in Ecuador’s schools.

Over the last decade, Ecuador has had 6,438 reported cases of sexual violence within the educational system, perpetrated by teachers, school authorities, other school staff, janitors, and often students, affecting 7,303 children. In the last four years alone, between January 2020 and June 2024, 2,827 cases were registered within the educational system.

These numbers undoubtedly understate the true total. The Ministry of Education excludes externally contracted school staff, such as school bus drivers, as perpetrators within the educational system, even though they are part of the educational environment and are essential for children to reach school. From January 2014 to June 2024, supplemental data shared by the ministry shows bus drivers were reported abusers in 78 cases, raising the number of reported school-related sexual violence cases to 6,516.

In June 2020, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled against Ecuador in Paola Guzmán Albarracín v. Ecuador, the court’s first-ever case on school-related sexual violence, and one of two landmark cases upholding the rights of survivors of school-related sexual violence in Ecuador. In 2001, Paola, a 14-year-old student who lived in Guayaquil, was raped and sexually abused for over a year by the vice principal of her public school. School staff were aware and did nothing to protect her. In December 2002, at the age of 16, Paola died by suicide.

In addition to granting reparations to Paola’s family, the Inter-American Court ordered the Ecuadorian government to put numerous measures in place to prevent, tackle, and eradicate sexual violence in schools, with the overarching goals of addressing ongoing acts of violence and ensuring that such abuses do not continue. Specific measures include detection and reporting of cases of school-related sexual violence; training of education staff regarding treatment and prevention; information, assistance, and attention to victims and their families; and regularly updated statistical information regarding school-related sexual violence against children.

In December 2020, Human Rights Watch published a report which found that sexual violence against children was an entrenched problem in schools across Ecuador at all grade levels. When children and their families sought justice, they faced serious obstacles and re-traumatization.

From December 2022 to June 2024, Human Rights Watch conducted follow-up research to evaluate steps taken by the Ecuadorian government to tackle and prevent school-related sexual violence, including digital and technology-enabled sexual violence.[1] Our research coincided with students’ return to in-person schooling after a long period of online and remote learning due to school closures related to the Covid-19 pandemic, and further school closures due to widespread insecurity fueled by organized criminal gangs.

This report finds that despite commitments by government institutions, led by the Ministry of Education, sexual violence remains endemic in Ecuador’s schools. It shows that Ecuador has put in place numerous measures to comply with the Inter-American Court ruling in the case of Paola Guzmán Albarracín, but these measures have not progressed at the scale and pace needed to ensure that all children are safe from sexual violence in school settings.

In the last few years, Ecuador has taken steps to tackle sexual violence in schools and to expedite justice for survivors. These include the development of a comprehensive and inter-institutional policy to eradicate school-based sexual violence; the launch of a strategy to implement comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) in schools; trainings for staff who work with children, adolescents and other children who are survivors of sexual violence; and awareness-raising on how to detect and respond to sexual violence perpetrated against students.

In August 2020, the Ministry of Women and Human Rights, the governing body responsible for complying with international rulings, established the Inter-Institutional Roundtable for the Construction of a Public Policy for the Eradication of Sexual Violence in Schools (“the Inter-Institutional Roundtable”), alongside eight other government institutions, including the Ministry of Education and judicial institutions. In February 2022, at their request, Centro Ecuatoriano para la Promoción y Acción de las Mujeres (CEPAM)-Guayaquil and Center for Reproductive Rights both joined the initiative as the plaintiff’s representatives in the Guzmán Albarracín case. The objective of this roundtable, which is expected to continue its work through 2030, is to coordinate measures, develop and implement a comprehensive policy for the prevention and eradication of sexual violence in educational settings, and to then monitor and evaluate its implementation.

Even with these important steps, there remain significant gaps in the government’s response. Many schools still fail to report abuses or fully implement required protocols. Ecuadorian media, civil society and prosecutors still report or prosecute egregious cases, including those in which teachers or school staff sexually abused several students.

Despite protocols requiring school staff to report cases of violence detected or committed in schools to education officials and judicial authorities, they do not always report sexual violence. Human Rights Watch found three prevailing reasons: a lack of knowledge and follow-through of the Ministry of Education’s binding protocols; the prioritization of school prestige and reputation over the need to protect students, reduce abuse, and hold perpetrators accountable; and a significant shortage of student welfare teams, including school psychologists and counselors. As a result, students are left vulnerable to abuse, and survivors are left without adequate care for their well-being or access to justice.

Since 2021, the Ministry of Education has launched several CSE initiatives in schools. However, authorities have faced challenges to properly train school staff on the developed methodologies and tools. Some teachers and parents have shown resistance toward trainings on topics related to adolescent pregnancy prevention and CSE. 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 prevent sexual violence.

In October 2023, the Ministry of Education issued the National Strategy on Comprehensive Sexuality Education (Estrategia Nacional de Educación Integral en Sexualidad, or ENEIS), to be implemented through 2030, requiring its application in all schools across the country. If a school does not implement the strategy, this could be considered negligence, and the school could be sanctioned under the education law.

In May 2024, the ministry began implementation of the strategy in 1,120 schools, with plans to evaluate implementation in 2025, and increase the number of schools over time.

In April 2024, the National Secretariat of Planning, which has the responsibility to approve public policies at the national level, approved the Public Policy to Eradicate Sexual Violence in Schools. The institutions involved had calculated that the funding required to carry out its activities is US$272.2 million through 2030, pending approval by the Ministry of Economy and Finances once issued. The policy will be implemented through 2030 in compliance with the Inter-American Court orders relating to guarantees of non-repetition. The policy aims to strengthen and coordinate activities among government institutions responsible for eradicating school-based sexual violence. This is to improve the government’s prevention, response, dissemination of information, and survivors’ access to justice and reparations. Though some institutions have made joint commitments to unify their data on sexual and gender-based violence, challenges to data collection remain. However, at the time of writing, the policy had not yet been launched.

Though government institutions have allocated funding for responding to school-based sexual violence, the funding has been inconsistent and, as demonstrated by the persistence of staffing shortages, insufficient. In particular, Ecuador’s prevention measures are not commensurate with the scale of sexual violence in schools and the urgent need to implement its commitment to zero tolerance against school-related sexual violence.

Moreover, funding to address gender-based violence, part of which would go toward school-based sexual violence, was not fully spent in 2023 and was reduced in 2024, even as reports of sexual violence against women and children continue at levels that are at least as high as in previous years.

Survivors also face obstacles in the judicial system.

There are barriers to carry out robust investigations and effective prosecutions of cases of school-based sexual violence, which obstruct survivors’ ability to find justice, contribute to their re-traumatization, and lead to impunity for perpetrators. These barriers include prosecutors and judges’ limited expertise or inexperience in dealing with cases of sexual and gender-based violence perpetrated against adolescents and other children, a shortage of prosecutors countrywide, limited availability of experts to evaluate or accompany child and adolescent complainants, overworked staff, and the wide breadth of crimes that prosecutors and judges must investigate and examine.

Survivors and their families choose to stop collaborating with the investigation because of re-traumatization, threats to abandon cases, and time-consuming and costly legal processes, which sometimes forces prosecutors to drop cases. Investigations often stall, or cases are closed because of a lack of experts to evaluate or accompany judicial proceedings in which the victims are adolescents or other children. Because they are limited in number, child-focused experts are sometimes booked for months out, which leads to delays in evidence gathering. These structural barriers impede the timely collection of evidence, including children’s testimony, and can often lead to case closures, according to judicial staff, lawyers, and other experts.

Data from the Attorney General’s Office analyzed by Human Rights Watch shows that of the 647 sexual violence complaints against teachers, school personnel, and students they received between 2020 and 2022, 17 went to trial, representing only 2.6 percent of the total reports. Only one case resulted in a conviction during that period.

The fact that only a few cases of institutional sexual violence result in sentences “generates a sense of impunity in victims and in society,” according to Ecuador’s Ombudsperson’s Office. A high caseload, limited staff, and scheduling practices can lead to delays in judicial proceedings, which can mean that survivors wait years to find justice and receive reparations, after an already emotionally taxing and costly process.

The Judiciary Council and the Attorney General’s Office have made efforts to train staff and increase capacity to address sexual and gender-based violence against children. Though a necessary first step for all actors involved in investigations and cases involving survivors of sexual violence, training is not enough to overcome the deep discriminatory and prejudicial challenges entrenched in judicial institutions. Prosecutors and judges may retain counterproductive attitudes or biases that training alone cannot change. These attitudes and biases can lead officials to unfavorably weigh the testimony of survivors, re-traumatize survivors in the course of proceedings, or dissuade survivors from continuing with their cases. This underscores the need for periodic and continuous training and for evaluations of prosecutorial and judicial staff.

Recent judicial setbacks, including a controversial 2021 Constitutional Court ruling in which the Court found that a teacher’s dismissal after he sexually harassed a student was not proportional to the offense he committed, have also had broader detrimental effects on survivors. They have impacted their ability to find reparative justice and have exacerbated impunity. Analysis by the Ministry of Education found that of 49 cases where teachers have appealed administrative dismissal for sexual violence since the 2021 ruling, courts overturned ministerial decisions to dismiss in 23 cases, meaning that 23 teachers were reinstated to their positions.

The Ecuadorian government has made important progress in tackling sexual violence in schools since the Inter-American Court ruling. However, it needs to step up to meet the challenges ahead, which far outweigh current progress. To see long-lasting change, the Ecuadorian government must commit to implementing new policies and ongoing monitoring and evaluation. It must also commit to train educational, prosecutorial, and judicial staff who work with child survivors, and to take other measures to both respond adequately to reports of school-based sexual violence and prevent these abuses from occurring. The government should ensure effective investigations and prosecutions of all cases of school-related sexual violence, and protect the rights of survivors and their relatives under Ecuadorian law throughout judicial proceedings.

Recommendations

To the President

• Reaffirm the government’s commitment to zero tolerance against all forms of school-related sexual violence, including during states of emergency and other national crises.

• Approve adequate budgets for the prevention of school-related sexual violence commensurate with the scale of this violence, including budgets for the prevention of gender-based violence, to fund all related policies.

To the Ministry of Education

• Reaffirm the government’s commitment to zero tolerance against all forms of school-related sexual violence, including digital sexual violence, during states of emergency and other national crises.

• Allocate adequate resources to tackle and prevent school-related sexual violence, including for ongoing training efforts for all education staff; provision of guides and resources to schools nation-wide, with sufficient training, technical support, and monitoring; and for hiring student welfare teams to meet the ratio required by law.

• Regularly evaluate, monitor and publish progress on implementation of the National Strategy on Comprehensive Sexuality Education.

• Take measures to redress cases of negligence by schools that do not teach the CSE curriculum, in whole or in part.

• Conduct and scale up its plan for mandatory and ongoing trainings for all members of the educational system, as well as members who work within the educational system, such as school bus drivers, on protocols to detect and report cases of sexual violence, including the newly established digital violence protocols. Ensure trainings address legal obligations to immediately report allegations of violence.

• Take appropriate measures to sanction schools, district offices, and regional coordinators that do not follow established protocols for detecting and reporting sexual and digital violence.

• Ensure education staff and reporting mechanisms are responsive to and inclusive of students who may not be able to speak out because of a fear of stigma, or because of a lack of reasonable accommodations, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students, migrant children, children with disabilities, and children living in conditions of poverty.

• Update the Registry of Violence (Registro de Violencia del Ministerio de Educación, or REDEVI) database to follow international standards of what constitutes “school-related” gender-based violence, and ensure it treats all people who support the work of the school, such as bus drivers, as people tied to educational institutions.

• Continue to periodically publish data on the Ministry of Education website, from the REDEVI database, on cases of sexual violence committed in schools, including with a breakdown of victims by age, gender, province, institution type, race/ethnicity, and disability status, and of perpetrators by age, gender, and role, while protecting private information.

• Ensure that during remote learning periods mandated in response to emergencies, reporting mechanisms for cases of sexual violence are efficient and accessible to students in various formats and methods, including online and over the phone, as well as in person, when feasible.

• Teachers facing allegations of sexual misconduct should at a minimum be separated during classes from the complaining students. Teachers should receive notice of allegations against them as well as an opportunity to be heard by disciplinary structures. Teachers facing allegations of sexual violence should be suspended with pay, the allegations reported to the police, and the suspension continued pending police investigation and trial, or the outcome of a disciplinary hearing if the case does not proceed to trial.

To the Attorney General’s Office

• Thoroughly and effectively investigate and, as appropriate, prosecute all cases of school-related sexual and digital violence.

• Allocate adequate resources toward staffing prosecutors’ offices with professionals who have expertise in working with children, including victims of sexual and gender-based violence and those with disabilities.

• Increase resources to expand and strengthen the existing gender-based violence specialist team at the Attorney General’s Office, and ensure this team is sufficiently staffed and has resources to provide adequate, hands-on support and redress for victims or their representatives who face intimidation, procedural problems, or other barriers.

• Increase specialized gender-based violence prosecution units to ensure geographical coverage and provide judicial support to victims, and:

  • Appoint more specialized prosecutors and teams; and

  • Ensure adequate training on child-centered investigations.

To the Judiciary Council

• Ensure the rights of child victims and their relatives under Ecuadorian law are protected throughout judicial proceedings, including by prioritizing their cases, seeking to ensure child victims only need to testify once or on as few occasions as necessary to ensure justice, conducting interviews in a Gesell chamber, strictly guarding confidentiality, and providing children and their relatives appropriate and accessible psychosocial services, including therapy.

• Ensure compliance with the constitutional and legislative requirement to guarantee expedited treatment of cases involving victims who are adolescents or other children.

• Provide ongoing training to all actors within the judicial system, including judges, public defenders, prosecutors, experts, and other staff on sexual violence against children, and regularly assess impact of trainings.

• Open investigations into unfulfilled reparations for adolescents and other children who are survivors of sexual violence and their families, and hold accountable perpetrators and institutions that have failed to provide reparations.

• Allocate funds to increase prosecutorial staff, to continue to repair Gesell chambers, and to provide appropriate trainings to address case delays.

• Conduct adequate and independent investigations into allegations against prosecutors, experts, and other judicial staff, including allegations of improper, sub-par or discriminatory conduct, corruption, and of mishandling or arbitrarily delaying an investigation. Expedite processes to recuse staff following credible allegations of misconduct.

To the Ministry of Women and Human Rights

• Regularly evaluate, monitor, and publish institutional contributions and progress toward the work of the Inter-Institutional Roundtable for the Construction of a Public Policy for the Eradication of Sexual Violence in Schools and compliance with the Public Policy to Eradicate Sexual Violence in Schools.

  • Ensure compliance with activities and indicators under the leadership of the ministry.

  • Ensure that each activity has sufficient resources for its sustainability for the duration of the policy through 2030.

• Implement the Public Policy for Comprehensive Reparations of Victims and Survivors of Violence against Women and Members of the Family Group and Femicide. The policy should prioritize the development of a mechanism to monitor compliance with reparations measures for survivors of sexual violence, including school-based sexual violence, and include guidance on monetary and non-monetary remedies, symbolic reparations, and acts of public reparations.

• Coordinate with the Inter-Institutional Roundtable and institutions that comprise the Comprehensive National System to Prevent and Eradicate Violence Against Women to further implementation of the Unified Violence Registry (Registro Único de Violencia, or RUV). Regularly publish statistics on cases of school-based sexual and digital violence reported by several institutions.

• Conduct awareness-raising campaigns on reporting mechanisms during periods of in-person and remote learning for sexual and gender-based violence against children and adolescents, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students, migrant children, children with disabilities, and children living in conditions of poverty.

To the Inter-Institutional Roundtable for the Construction of a Public Policy for the Eradication of Sexual Violence in Schools

Composed of the Ministry of Women and Human Rights, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Public Health, Attorney General’s Office, Judiciary Council, National Council for Intergenerational Equality, National Council for Gender Equality, National Court of Justice and Ministry of Economic and Social Inclusion:

• Regularly evaluate, monitor, and publish institutional contributions and progress toward the work of the Inter-Institutional Roundtable and compliance with the Public Policy to Eradicate Sexual Violence in Schools. The roundtable should ensure that all institutions are held to account for compliance, and that each activity has sufficient resources for its sustainability for the duration of the policy through 2030.

• Regularly publish statistics on services provided to survivors and victims of school-based sexual and digital violence, with a breakdown of victims by age, gender, province, institution type, race/ethnicity, and disability status, and of perpetrators by age, gender, and role, while protecting private information.

• Provide ongoing training to all staff who provide services to survivors and victims, including training on children’s rights, sexual and gender-based violence, and juvenile justice. Regularly monitor and evaluate progress of these trainings.

• Ensure that all survivors of school-based sexual violence receive information on what services are available to them, including medical, psychological, and legal services; and ensure they receive these services in a respectful manner, without re-traumatization.

To the National Assembly

• Adopt a law on reparations and remedies for child and adolescent survivors of sexual violence and their families, that is informed by survivors and includes monetary and non-monetary remedies, symbolic reparations, and acts of public reparations.

Methodology

This report draws on research conducted by Human Rights Watch between December 2022 and June 2024. The report findings are based on in-depth interviews, data and legal analyses, and an extensive review of secondary sources. This research builds on an earlier investigation conducted by Human Rights Watch in 2019 and 2020 that found that thousands of students suffer sexual violence in Ecuador’s schools.[2]

Human Rights Watch conducted 68 interviews with representatives of civil society organizations, lawyers, activists, experts, children’s rights defenders, and government officials in Ecuador. Interviews included questions on the prevention of sexual violence, including comprehensive sexuality education and trainings for staff who are responsible for responding to sexual violence; response to cases, including referrals by school personnel and provision of services; access to justice for survivors and their families; and comprehensive reparations.[3]

All interviews were conducted in Spanish remotely, via telephone or video call. Human Rights Watch informed all interviewees of the purpose of the interview, its voluntary nature, and the ways in which information would be collected and used. Human Rights Watch assured participants that they could end the interview at any time or decline to answer any question, without any negative consequences. All interviewees provided verbal informed consent to participate. Human Rights Watch did not provide interviewees with financial compensation for participating.

Human Rights Watch follows practices to reduce the risk of re-traumatization of survivors or victims of sexual violence. Between 2019 and 2020, Human Rights Watch interviewed survivors of sexual violence and their families to establish the widespread nature of sexual violence in educational institutions.[4] Based on detailed interviews with experts working with and accompanying child survivors and victims of sexual violence, including prosecutors and lawyers, we chose not to interview survivors for this report. Instead, we documented new cases of sexual violence and, wherever possible, sought further details of new and old cases by requesting information from government institutions and other experts who interacted with the survivor, and analyzed media and social media reports related to cases. This methodological approach also respects the recommendation Ecuadorian civil society organizations and experts have made to the government of Ecuador to minimize the number of times survivors have to recount their stories.

In 2023, Human Rights Watch sent information request letters to four key government institutions that have committed to tackling this issue: two to the Ministry of Education, in January and December 2023; one to the Attorney General’s Office, in January 2023; one to the Ministry of Women and Human Rights (formerly the Secretariat of Human Rights), in March 2023; and one to the Judiciary Council, in April 2023. We requested data on reported cases, investigations, and prosecutions of cases of school-based sexual violence, as well as the institutions’ existing and planned policies to prevent and address sexual and gender-based violence. All four institutions responded.

In May 2024, Human Rights Watch sent letters to these same institutions detailing our preliminary findings, draft recommendations, and additional questions, asking for comment by publication. In June 2024, the Ministry of Education and the Judiciary Council responded.

We met with officials from the Ministry of Education, the Attorney General’s Office, the Judiciary Council, the Ombudsperson’s Office, the Ministry of Public Health, and the cantonal board for the protection of human rights in a remote province. The Ministry of Women and Human Rights did not respond to our request for an interview.

Human Rights Watch withheld the names and affiliations of some interviewees at their request, to protect their privacy or security.

The report also draws from a comprehensive review of official documents and reports; national laws; government policies and reports; government submissions to United Nations bodies; documents from the Organization of American States (OAS), including the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights; UN independent expert and treaty body reports; reports by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs); academic articles; news and other media; and social media discussions, including on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.

In this report, the term “child” refers to anyone under the age of 18, consistent with usage in international law. Ecuadorian law defines a child as someone under the age of 12, and an adolescent as someone between the ages of 12 and 18.
 

I. Slow Progress in Tackling School-Related Sexual Violence

Trainings [of staff who support survivors] … is like patchwork, it’s not … structural.

–UN agency official based in Ecuador, August 2023

Paola Guzmán Albarracín was a 14-year-old student who lived in Guayaquil. Beginning in 2001, she was raped and sexually abused for over a year by the vice principal of her public school. School staff were aware of what was going on and did nothing to protect her. In November 2002, Paola learned she was pregnant, and the vice principal coerced her into an abortion, to be carried out by the school doctor. The doctor also sexually abused Paola. In December 2002, at the age of 16, Paola died by suicide.[5]

Paola’s is the first case on school-related sexual violence ever to reach the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and then the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.[6]

In 2020, in the landmark Paola Guzmán Albarracín v. Ecuador case, the Inter-American Court ordered Ecuador to improve prevention of and response to sexual violence in schools, and to ensure access to justice and comprehensive reparations.[7]

The court also required guarantees of non-repetition, including obligations to implement the following four measures: provide regularly updated statistical information regarding school-related sexual violence against children; detect and report cases of school-related sexual violence; train education staff regarding the treatment and prevention of sexual violence; and provide information, assistance, and attention to victims of school-related sexual violence and their families.

In 2020, Human Rights Watch found that sexual violence against children from preschool through secondary school was entrenched in Ecuador’s education system, and it was characterized by impunity and serious obstacles for young victims and their families when seeking justice.[8] Since then, Ecuador has made progress in its commitments to respond to, tackle, and prevent school-based sexual violence. But it has a long way to go to solve this endemic problem. Media, civil society, and the Attorney General’s Office continue to report on egregious cases, including those in which teachers or school staff sexually abuse several students.[9] National crises, including confinements ordered to contain the Covid-19 pandemic and widespread organized crime and gang-related violence, have also affected the government’s response in areas with high levels of gender-based violence.[10]

Faced with endemic levels of school-related sexual violence, the Ecuadorian government has complied with some, but not all, of the structural measures the Inter-American Court ruling ordered.[11] While Ecuador has taken steps toward implementing each of the four measures to guarantee non-repetition of abuses, these measures have not progressed enough or at the scale and pace needed to ensure all children are safe from sexual violence in school settings.

In August 2020, the Ministry of Women and Human Rights, the governing body responsible for complying with international rulings, launched the Inter-Institutional Roundtable for the Construction of a Public Policy for the Eradication of Sexual Violence in Schools, which includes eight other institutions, among which are the Ministry of Education and all judicial institutions.[12]

From the time the government formed the roundtable, CEPAM-Guayaquil and Center for Reproductive Rights advocated to join it, as the plaintiff’s representatives in the Guzmán Albarracín case. In February 2022, at their request, both joined the initiative.[13]

The government reported to the Court its compliance with the remaining measures, notably through the adoption of the Public Policy to Eradicate Sexual Violence in Schools—previously a strategy—to be implemented through 2030.[14] The policy has four aims: prevention, response, access to justice and reparations, and dissemination of information, developed in response to the four measures required in the Inter-American Court ruling. The focus and limitations of this policy will be explored in sections below. In April 2024, the policy had been approved by the National Secretariat of Planning, which has the responsibility to approve public policies at the national level, and the institutions involved had calculated that the funding required to carry out its activities is US$272.2 million through 2030, pending approval by the Ministry of Economy and Finances once issued.[15] However, at the time of writing, the policy had not yet been launched.[16]

In May 2024, the Center for Reproductive Rights and CEPAM-Guayaquil expressed concern about the ability of the Ministry of Women and Human Rights to implement and guarantee funding for the policy.[17]

Entrenched School-Related Sexual Violence

From January 2014 until June 2024, the Ministry of Education received reports of 6,438 cases of school-related sexual violence, perpetrated by teachers, school authorities, other school staff, janitors, or students, and affecting 7,303 children.[18] In the last four years alone, between January 2020 and June 2024, ministry data shows 2,827 cases within the educational system.[19]

However, the Ministry of Education excludes externally contracted staff, such as school bus drivers, as those within the educational system even though they are part of the educational environment and are essential for children to reach school.[20] Supplemental data from the ministry shows that between 2014 and 2024, bus drivers were alleged perpetrators in 78 cases, raising the number of reported school-related sexual violence cases to 6,516.

Table 1. Sexual violence offenses in schools, by year, Ministry of Education, 2014-2024

Source: Ministry of Education, “Sexual Violence Cases Detected or Committed in the Educational System,” June 2024. School bus drivers are excluded from the REDEVI registry classification of perpetrators in the educational system, and they are not included in this table.

There is often a mismatch between statistics of sexual violence registered by the Ministry of Education and those registered by the Attorney General’s Office, as evidenced by the data they provided to Human Rights Watch, and laid out in Tables 2 and 3.[21] The ministry downloads statistics from the REDEVI database, and since 2018, sends the Attorney General’s Office on a monthly basis all cases not reported to prosecutors’ offices.[22] According to the ministry, 98.9 percent of cases have an official complaint lodged in the Attorney General’s Office.[23] The ministry acknowledges there are cases that are not reported either because the prosecutor’s office does not accept them, or because members of the educational community face threats or extortion.[24] The ministry has sent the Attorney General’s Office several official requests to verify or initiate complaints and their respective investigations.[25]

As the following two tables show, most perpetrators of sexual violence against students are teachers, and other students. Between 2020 and 2022, almost 99 percent of the perpetrators of school-based sexual violence were male, and 90 percent of victims were female.[26]

Table 2. Sexual violence offenses in schools, by alleged perpetrator, Ministry of Education, 2020-2022

Source: Letter from the Ministry of Education to Human Rights Watch, February 13, 2023. Note that the numbers for these years have since been updated, and percentages only reflect an estimation by Human Rights Watch of the number of cases by perpetrator as of February 2023. School bus drivers are excluded from the REDEVI registry classification of perpetrators in the educational system, but they are included in this table.

Table 3. Sexual violence offenses in schools, by alleged perpetrator, Attorney General’s Office, 2020-2022

Source: Letter from the Attorney General’s Office to Human Rights Watch, February 10, 2023. Note that the numbers for these years have since been updated, and percentages only reflect an estimation by Human Rights Watch of the number of cases by perpetrator as of February 2023.

Most cases of sexual violence go unreported. The government estimated that less than 10 percent of survivors report to authorities.[27] Reporting continues to be undermined by entrenched discriminatory attitudes among education staff and practices that re-traumatize survivors, such as not believing survivors, minimizing abuse, and having survivors retell their stories countless times.

Sexual Violence During the Covid-19 Pandemic

On March 12, 2020, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, then-Minister of Education Monserrat Creamer Guillén closed schools and announced a plan to transition to online platforms so students could continue learning from home.[28] Schools were fully closed throughout 2020, partially open during 2021, and only fully reopened in March 2022.[29]

The increased use of technology during the pandemic heightened risks of gender-based violence, according to civil society organizations.[30] Online learning posed unique challenges for keeping children safe from sexual violence, including the ability of school staff to detect and respond to possible abuse.[31]

Hindrance in the ability of school staff to detect sexual violence cases during online learning is evident when comparing numbers of reported cases from one month to the next. In February 2020, the Ministry of Education received 227 complaints of sexual violence detected or committed in the educational system.[32] The next month, in March 2020, the ministry received 132 complaints. And in April 2020, when schools were closed for in-person learning for the entire month, it received only 22 complaints. Diana Castellanos Vela, the former vice minister of education, commented on the “strong and pronounced drop in the number of registered cases between 2019 and 2020,” and that reporting of statistics stabilized in 2022 and 2023 once children were back in school.[33]

The number of reported cases increased progressively as schools adapted to online learning, and then significantly increased after schools fully reopened in March 2022, according to Ministry of Education data. For example, from April 2020 to April 2021, there was a 460 percent increase in reported cases; from April 2021 to April 2022, a month after schools fully reopened, there was a 151 percent increase.[34] Castellanos Vela pointed out that in-person schooling allows for the detection of cases and the activation of protocols.[35]

Civil society organizations also identified difficulties that victims faced in reporting sexual violence to police and prosecutorial authorities during the pandemic-related confinement in 2020, resulting in decreased reporting of sexual violence.[36] This was due to a variety of factors, including reduced in-person services at prosecutors’ offices[37] and in the justice system and an overburdened health system.[38] Some survivors had limited ability to access virtual reporting tools, due to being confined at home with their perpetrator, lack of access to devices,[39] or jammed telephone lines.[40] Surkuna, a feminist public litigation and advocacy organization, reported that women and girls often faced barriers accessing emergency services or making complaints to police and prosecutors’ offices.[41]

Additionally, on some occasions, individuals outside the educational system infiltrated children’s online learning platforms and sent images with sexual content.[42] These cases highlight the limited security on platforms used by public institutions and in their information systems.[43]

Rise of Insecurity and Gang-Related Violence

Ecuador has, in recent years, suffered increasing levels of insecurity and violence. Homicides in the country increased by 571 percent between 2019 and 2023, from a rate of 7 per 100,000 people in 2019 to 47 per 100,000 people in 2023,[44] which placed Ecuador among the most violent countries in Latin America in 2023.[45] The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that homicides of children in 2023 increased by 640 percent compared to 2019.[46] Ecuadorian children’s rights groups and UN experts have sounded the alarm on the impact that the levels of violence have on children and their rights,[47] including risks of sexual exploitation and coercion to engage in violence.[48] In 2022 and 2023, the Ministry of Education temporarily suspended in-person learning for varying periods of time in some violence-afflicted regions, including during states of emergency, such as in Guayaquil and Durán.[49] For example, in-person learning was suspended for almost two months in Durán canton,[50] in Guayas province.[51]

After President Daniel Noboa declared an “armed conflict” against gangs on January 9, 2024, Ecuador’s education ministry temporarily suspended all in-person classes and switched to online learning across the country, affecting the education of nearly 4.3 million children.[52] After two weeks, the ministry reopened schools in some parts of the country,[53] but those in areas with higher levels of violence, such as in Quito, and in Guayas, Esmeraldas, and Los Ríos provinces, remained closed for longer.[54] Also in January, in some of Ecuador’s provinces, unknown, masked individuals—in one case armed—reportedly hacked into online classes to threaten students and teachers.[55] All schools reopened fully in March, nearly two months after the declaration.[56]

Insecurity and crime may affect schools’ ability to respond to sexual violence and increase the vulnerability of children and teachers.[57] As the data shows, when students attend school remotely, it is harder for school staff and student welfare teams to detect cases of sexual violence within and outside the educational system,[58] thus impacting their ability to initiate binding protocols.[59] The education ministry has acknowledged the difficulties of detecting violence during online learning. It told Human Rights Watch that since the Covid-19 pandemic, when remote learning became a routine practice during emergencies, the ministry has implemented reporting mechanisms for sexual violence, teachers have had tools to identify risks and detect cases,[60] and that they have maintained contact with students virtually.[61]

Increased crime, violence, and insecurity have hampered government institutions’ responses to sexual violence. Yoli Pinillo Castillo, a prosecutor and coordinator of the gender unit of the prosecutor’s office in Guayaquil, expressed concerns over rising and widespread insecurity leaving victims of gender-based violence unprotected. Police have refused to respond to emergency calls related to cases of gender-based violence in troubled areas of the city, Pinillo Castillo said.[62] Other experts echoed this sentiment.[63]

Institutional Challenges with Responding to Abuses

In 2020, the Ministry of Education updated its 2014 protocols for responding to cases of sexual violence detected in schools.[64] It emphasizes the legal obligation that teachers, student welfare teams, and other staff have to report allegations of sexual violence within 24 hours.[65] In September 2023, in response to a 2021 Constitutional Court ruling on nonconsensual sharing of intimate images among adolescents, the ministry published specific protocols for addressing digital violence detected in the educational system.[66]

Shortages in Student Welfare Teams

Student welfare teams—composed of school counsellors, psychologists, and social workers at the school and district level—are responsible for responding to and reporting sexual violence.[67] Student welfare staff in public schools are selected by district staff, who are in turn selected by a network of student welfare staff; private schools are responsible for the selection of their staff.[68] Yet there is a critical shortage of teams, which leaves many overworked and overburdened and limits children’s access to trained personnel.[69] This notable gap in critical staff also hampers attainment of the response objectives, laid out in the Public Policy to Eradicate Sexual Violence in Schools. These objectives include ensuring specialized, comprehensive, and timely care for child and adolescent school-based sexual violence survivors in need of medical, psychological, social, and legal services.

The national law on education requires a ratio of at least 1 student welfare team personnel for every 450 students.[70] Yet, the Ministry of Education informed Human Rights Watch that the ratio in 2021 was 1 for every 1,354 students, and in 2022, 1 for every 1,129.[71] The number of psychologists can vary by province and area: the Galápagos islands, for example, had only 2 or 3 student welfare staff to serve a student population of over 7,000 students in 2023.[72] Ecuador pledged to close the gap by 2025, according to the Ministry of Education.[73] By December 2023, throughout Ecuador, there were 3,153 psychologists, well short of the ratio required by law.[74]

“Student welfare teams continue to downplay the importance of addressing cases of sexual abuse or harassment in the classrooms, causing more situations of violence and revictimization to occur,” according to Ammy, a leader in Movimiento Por Ser Niña.[75] 

School Prestige Over Student Protection

The Ministry of Education has reported taking various steps to ensure all relevant authorities of the educational system are aware of the protocols, including disseminating the protocols to schools and training thousands of education staff.[76] Despite increased awareness of their binding nature, many school staff do not always abide by these protocols, including by taking the basic step of reporting cases to the correct authorities.[77]

As Human Rights Watch found in 2020 based on documented cases, some school personnel tend to protect their colleagues, including alleged perpetrators, as well as the image, reputation, and prestige of the school.[78] This attitude—often referred to as “espíritu de cuerpo” in Spanish—continues to permeate in some schools’ responses to sexual violence.[79] “Teaching staff prefer to maintain institutional silence rather than carry out the proper reporting processes, [which would ensure] that the students do not continue studying in the same spaces where their aggressors are,” said Ammy, a leader in Movimiento Por Ser Niña.[80]

Setbacks in Administrative Sanctions of Teachers Accused of Sexual Violence

Progress in tackling impunity within the educational system through sanctions of teachers has suffered setbacks due to a harmful 2021 Constitutional Court ruling, which has been widely criticized by civil society organizations, and has had ripple effects on other sexual violence cases.[94]

Sanctions against private school institutions are determined through administrative procedures called sanctioning processes, and depending on the infraction can result in fines, separation of staff from the establishment, or revocation of the school’s authorization to operate.[95]

Administrative sanctions against public school officials are determined through inquiries handled within the Ministry of Education. Sanctions depend on the type of infraction committed. Dismissal is only considered for a very serious infraction, such as an act of sexual violence or failure to report cases of violence to authorities.[96] Between 2020 and 2022, a total of 38 public school teachers were dismissed by the Ministry of Education due to allegations of sexual violence, according to Ministry of Education data requested by Human Rights Watch.[97]

The case in which the Constitutional Court issued its 2021 ruling began in 2019, at a public school in Latacunga, Cotopaxi province, where a gym teacher sexually harassed a 13-year-old student by touching her inappropriately. The school director reported the case to the prosecutor’s office, but the prosecutor determined that there was no evidence to charge him and closed the case. An administrative inquiry was also opened, and the teacher was dismissed from his position. He appealed the sanction, and after it was denied, submitted an extraordinary appeal for review, which was also unsuccessful. The teacher then presented a protection action against the Ministry of Education, alleging his rights had been violated when he was dismissed. The teacher was successful: His dismissal was annulled, and he was reinstated to his post. The ministry appealed the decision, and the case eventually reached the Constitutional Court.[98]

The Constitutional Court ruling confirmed that the student experienced sexual harassment. The court determined that the proportionality between a violation and its sanction can be determined by the extent of harm, effects on the victim, and possible consequences on the accused.[99] Since the student was not found to have suffered physically or mentally, and because a dismissal would negatively impact the teacher, the court ruled that the dismissal was “excessive” and “not proportional” to the “light” violation he committed. The appropriate sanction would have been suspension, the court ruled.[100] In this case, the court considered that the time the teacher was suspended while the case was being investigated was sufficient.[101] Further, it ordered the Ministry of Education to consider restorative justice in conflict resolution practices, in addition to making official complaints.[102] However, restorative justice in cases involving teachers and students fails to consider the power imbalances between students and perpetrators in positions of power, and the possible re-traumatization of survivors, according to the Observatorio Paola Guzmán Albarracín.[103]

Analysis by the Ministry of Education found that of 49 cases where teachers have appealed administrative dismissal for sexual violence since the 2021 ruling, courts overturned ministerial decisions in 23 cases, meaning that all 23 teachers were reinstated to their positions.[104]

To pay financial compensation to reinstated teachers, zonal and district offices have diverted funds from their budgets for prevention and protection measures, such as school maintenance—for example for bathrooms—and halted the hiring of teachers and judicial staff, according to the former vice minister of education.[105]

To prevent re-traumatization of students, who may be forced to see teachers who previously committed abuses against them, the ministry has taken emergency measures to ensure that teachers who are reinstated following judicial decisions do not have contact with survivors. Some have been placed in administrative roles.[106]

Challenges with Inter-Ministerial Data Collection

Ecuador’s Public Policy to Eradicate Sexual Violence in Schools outlines the government’s objectives to strengthen data collection, and to provide updated and ongoing information and statistics on school-based sexual violence and on policies, plans, and actions to address it.[107] Since 2018, the government has undertaken important efforts to improve data collection and reporting. Notably, the Ministry of Education created a comprehensive database and tool, referred to as the Registry of Violence (Registro de Violencia del Ministerio de Educación, or REDEVI), which tracks complaints the ministry receives, and collects periodic statistics on cases of sexual violence reported since 2014.[108]

Ecuador’s Comprehensive National System to Prevent and Eradicate Violence against Women is composed of several local and national institutions with the responsibility to plan and coordinate government actions on violence against women and girls.[109] These institutions have the responsibility to contribute to the Unified Violence Registry (Registro Único de Violencia, or RUV), which tracks all reported cases of sexual violence, including those that take place outside the educational system.[110] In November 2022, the first phase of the RUV was launched.[111] All institutions are required to share the information they collect on survivors of violence through complaints, cases, or services provided. Officials have stressed the importance of the RUV as a way to avoid revictimization, so survivors of violence do not have to file a complaint every time they seek services at various government institutions.[112]

However, roll-out of the RUV has been hampered by limited institutional advancements in data collection and development, as well as poor coordination among institutions. These shortcomings have posed challenges for the institutional response to sexual violence, such as follow-up on compliance with protection measures.[113]

Since institutions collect different categories of data and have their own separate databases, it can be difficult to compare data sets,[114] resulting in an incomplete picture of the prevalence of sexual violence in schools. For instance, while the Ministry of Education collects information on the relationship between the victim and aggressor to establish whether the violence occurred in school settings, the Judiciary Council, which administers the three branches that make up the justice sector—judges, prosecutors, and public defenders, collects information on the profession of the aggressor.[115] A Judiciary Council official told Human Rights Watch that some institutions participating in the RUV had not developed parameters for contributing to the database, and that some appear to have inadequate resources for collecting data and monitoring cases.[116] Even for institutions that have developed parameters, such as the Judiciary Council, no staff member had been assigned to receive statistical information from the Council.

The RUV will include a variable on sexual violence committed in schools by mid-2025, and statistics on gender-based violence are expected to be available by the end of 2025, according to an April 2024 version of the Public Policy to Eradicate Sexual Violence in Schools.[117] The first publication of RUV statistics in November 2023, with data provided by seven government institutions, included breakdowns by race/ethnicity, disability type, and type of violence.[118]

Despite progress in collecting and publishing statistics on sexual violence in the REDEVI and RUV databases, there are important limitations, which include the following:

• The first RUV report, with data provided by seven government institutions, did not include or publish data on digital violence.

• The Ministry of Education, the Attorney General’s Office, and the Judiciary Council do not collect data on the type of platform or messaging service where digital sexual violence occurred, according to information provided to Human Rights Watch.

• The Ministry of Education does not publish data on disability status, despite collecting this information.

• The Ministry of Education does not classify school transportation drivers as actors within the educational system, meaning that the number of school-related sexual violence cases is underestimated.

• The Ministry of Education does not collect information on race/ethnicity. However, the ministry states that even though it does not collect data on race or ethnicity, it provides comprehensive services to all survivors, and works with other government institutions to promote rights and prevent sexual violence while taking these factors into account.[119]

The Ministry of Education told Human Rights Watch it is working with the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos, or INEC) to strengthen its REDEVI system, and with the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Women and Human Rights to improve the RUV database.[120]

According to an April 2024 version of the Public Policy, the budget through 2030 for all activities part of the “dissemination of information” aim is US$13.1 million.
 

II. Inadequate Prevention Efforts

Schools are not acting as communities of protection and prevention.

–Carla Patiño Carreño, Fundación Idea Dignidad, March 2023

The Ecuadorian government has acknowledged that prevention is a critical component of its efforts to eradicate sexual violence in schools. Its new Public Policy to Eradicate Sexual Violence in Schools seeks to strengthen the educational system’s prevention efforts once implemented. The government has focused its efforts on training teachers and others in the educational community, ensuring education actors and students are informed about its protocols and reporting mechanisms, and adopting comprehensive sexuality education (CSE)—a powerful, evidence-based intervention in the government’s prevention efforts, both in its curriculum and in a national strategy. It plans to institutionalize all of these efforts in its Public Policy once implemented.

Yet, its prevention goals are seriously hampered by the lack of adequate budgets for prevention and eradication of school-related sexual violence and gender-based violence against children, as well as obstacles to implementing CSE in schools.

Limited National Budgets for Prevention and Eradication

Ecuador’s prevention measures are not commensurate with the scale of school-related sexual violence and the urgent need to implement its commitment to zero tolerance against sexual violence in school settings. Its low budgetary allocation and spending on prevention does not support its commitment to comply with the Inter-American Court ruling to prevent and bring to an end the types of abuses described in this report.

Funding and budget cuts have historically stalled efforts to address school-based sexual violence. For example, in 2022, education made up 3.6 percent of Ecuador’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a decrease from 4.6 percent in 2018—a level that has failed to recover following years of austerity measures and Covid-19 effects.[121] The government has committed to increasing funding to address gender-based violence from US$4.7 million in 2020 to $24 million for the period 2022-2025.[122] Moreover, funding to address gender-based violence, part of which would go toward school-based sexual violence, was not fully spent in 2023 and was reduced in 2024, even as reports of sexual violence against women and children continue at levels that are at least as high as in previous years.[123]

In 2023, the Ministry of Education reported that its total budget for preventing and addressing sexual violence was nearly US$1.97 million in 2020, which was reduced to US$328,400 in 2021. The budget for these efforts increased again in 2022, reaching US$970,000, but was nearly cut by half in 2023, when the budget was US$581,000.[124] During the year, $75,650 were spent on prevention of psychosocial risks, under which sexual violence falls, according to the ministry’s accountability report for 2023.[125] The Planning Secretariat found that the ministry’s psychosocial risks project had “low compliance with physical goals and low budget execution.”[126]

In 2024, the Ministry of Education planned a budget of nearly US$203,000 to prevent and address psychosocial risks in schools, which is a component of its National Strategy on Comprehensive Sexuality Education (Estrategia Nacional de Educación Integral en Sexualidad, or ENEIS).[127]

The Public Policy to Eradicate Sexual Violence in Schools, which requires all participating institutions to allocate funding for all activities under the four aims—prevention, response, access to justice and comprehensive reparations, and dissemination of information—has an estimated budget of $272.2 million through 2030, according to an April 2024 version of the policy.[128]

Of this, US$249.5 million is allocated to the policy’s response activities, which will be led by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Women and Human Rights.[129] The largest proportion of which—$236.7 million—will go toward hiring student welfare staff to reduce the gap by 50 percent.[130]

US$8 million are allocated to prevention activities through 2030, US$7.6 million of which will go toward activities related to comprehensive sexuality education.[131] The current prevention allocation under the policy comes out to US$1.1 million every year through 2030.

Comprehensive Sexuality Education

The Ministry of Education has launched several comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) initiatives in schools, but efforts have been piecemeal and levels of acceptance by teachers, parents, and school staff have been mixed.

Experts and civil society organizations in Ecuador and across the region have reiterated the need for nationwide measures to guarantee children and adolescents CSE that provides them with tools to identify, report, and defend themselves against sexual violence.[132] The Inter-American Court confirmed in Paola Guzmán Albarracín v. Ecuador that the “right to education encompasses education on sexual and reproductive rights.”[133]

When executed in line with international standards, CSE is crucial in fostering safe and informed practices when it comes to puberty, menstruation, sexual development, relationships, and safer sex, and in preventing gender-based violence, gender inequality, sexually transmitted infections, and unintended pregnancies.

Since 2021, the Ministry of Education has launched several initiatives related to CSE in schools.[134] These include the development of a methodology for all grade levels in 2021 and teaching the methodology to thousands of students and teachers;[135] online courses and awareness-raising workshops for teachers, student welfare teams,[136] and students; and rollout of materials through printed copies, videos, and comics, among others.[137] It has also launched a plan for permanent and continuous trainings for teachers, covering topics on violence prevention and CSE.[138] Though the ministry has made advances, it faces considerable challenges.

Previous CSE efforts have been piecemeal at the school level, and the Ministry of Education has struggled to implement its CSE methodologies across all schools.[139] For example, in 2022 and 2023, nearly 74 percent of schools that had completed at least one CSE intervention did not use the ministry-promoted tools, according to a Ministry of Education official.[140]

Teaching quality CSE requires adequately trained and sensitized teachers. Working on implementation for teachers and student welfare teams requires challenging gender roles and stereotypes, ensuring that sexist attitudes among staff are not reinforced, and understanding sexual and gender diversity.[141] Religious and political groups inside and outside institutions have also hampered efforts to implement CSE in schools.[142] Diana Castellanos Vela, the former vice minister of education, told Human Rights Watch she and other staff heading CSE initiatives faced false accusations of “indoctrinating” children, along with criticism based on claims that sexuality education is solely the responsibility and right of the family.[143]

Teachers and parents sometimes show resistance toward trainings on topics related to adolescent pregnancy prevention and CSE.[144] “The teachers get annoyed, mad, ask us, ‘how do you expect us to talk like this to children?’” said a government official who provides such trainings in schools.[145]

“Gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity are topics not covered in school curriculums,” said Ammy, a leader in Movimiento Por Ser Niña.[146] School staff may not understand these topics because of generational differences and lack of training or education that addresses such topics,[147] even though they are an integral part of CSE, according to UN officials. Forty-eight percent of 29,225 adolescents and youth surveyed by UNICEF in 2022 did not know if their educational institution offered counseling and family education on issues related to the LGBTI+ community.[148]

According to a Ministry of Education official, a 2018 guide developed to prevent and combat discrimination based on a person’s sexual orientation and gender identity was not “adequately implemented due to political reasons.”[149] This observation is in line with reports of teachers and other groups pushing back on these topics, and other reporting on limited socialization of the guide in schools.[150] Since President Noboa took office, the Ministry of Education has taken steps to socialize the guide. As of December 2023, according to the Ministry of Education, it was working with the Ministry of Women and Human Rights to train teachers and student welfare teams on these issues, and a priority of this administration is to implement the guide.[151] The prevention of and response to discrimination and violence against sexual and gender minorities is included in the tools that are part of the ENEIS strategy.[152]

Government institutions have delivered trainings and conducted other awareness-raising activities on sexual violence against children.[153] “Such trainings should be permanent, particularly as manifestations of violence in a patriarchal system, and sexist attitudes are difficult to change through one-off trainings,” said Ammy, a leader in Movimiento Por Ser Niña.[154] UN officials have also emphasized the need to provide ongoing trainings, as well as to adapt curricula for children and adolescents from different contexts, groups, and areas.[155]

On August 14, 2023, the National Day against Sexual Violence in Schools, the Ministry of Education first presented its National Strategy on Comprehensive Sexuality Education (Estrategia Nacional de Educación Integral en Sexualidad, or ENEIS),[156] with the aim of providing “guidelines for the implementation, support and monitoring of CSE at the national, zonal, and district levels.”

However, the ministry set a limited goal of ensuring 40 percent of public schools implement all programs related to CSE with students and families,[157] and at least 50 percent of teachers are trained in tools and methodologies to implement the CSE curriculum, by 2030.[158] Studies in 2021 and 2022 of CSE implementation status across 19 countries in Latin America found that Ecuador’s implementation was among the lowest.[159]

In October 2023, the Ministry of Education issued the National Strategy on Comprehensive Sexuality Education, requiring its application in all schools across the country.[160] In May 2024, the ministry began implementation of the strategy in 1,120 schools, with plans to evaluate implementation in 2025, and to increase the number of schools over time.[161]

Topics that would be taught are based on the methodologies and tools previously developed.[162] The ministry has set standards to monitor schools’ compliance with the strategy, such as requiring them to attend at least 75 percent of CSE district network meetings, requiring at least one school director and 50 percent of teachers to be trained in CSE, and requiring at least 50 percent of students to carry out a CSE-related project.[163] It is also currently developing a monitoring and evaluation plan that would assess implementation of the strategy.[164] If a school does not implement the strategy, this could be considered negligence and the school could be sanctioned in line with Ecuador’s education law.[165]

In November 2023, the ministry published a new curriculum for all schools in the country,[166] which covers detection and reporting of violence among other topics. The curriculum is set to begin in the 2024-2025 academic year.
 

III. Limited Progress in Access to Justice and Reparations

People won’t pursue complaints. They won’t do it because it’s awful, it’s revictimizing, it’s wasting your life on people who aren’t going to listen to you. So, the few cases that go forward are because those mothers have the force of will as big as the Cotopaxi volcano.

–former official, Secretariat of Human Rights (now Ministry of Women and Human Rights), March 2023

Access to justice is not a straightforward endeavor for survivors and families—many of whom still do not report cases because they do not trust the judicial system.[167] An expectation of impunity, the lack of prompt justice, and the lack of sanctions for perpetrators dissuades families from reporting cases.[168] The mental health of victims and family members often suffers due to a lengthy judicial process that is typically hostile and perceived to be unfair to children and their families.[169] Survivors and their families face significant barriers at every step of the judicial process, such as re-traumatization, threats to abandon cases, and time-consuming and costly legal processes. They choose not to report their abuser, in many cases, abandon the process, and as a result, prosecutors decide not to continue with the investigation.[170]

In June 2023, the Coalition Against Sexual Abuse of Children and Adolescents (Coalición Contra el Abuso Sexual a la Niñez, or COCASEN) and Ecuador’s Ombudsperson’s Office launched an investigation into institutional compliance with recommendations that the AAMPETRA Commission made to several institutions, including the National Assembly, the Ministry of Education, the Attorney General’s Office, the Judiciary Council, and the Ministry of Justice, Human Rights, and Religions (now the Ministry of Women and Human Rights).[171] Recommendations included calling on the National Assembly to create a truth commission to follow up on the 7,531 complaints registered at the Attorney General’s Office between January 2015 and April 2018, which were pending at the time and were not within the scope of the Commission.[172] In December 2023, the Ombudsperson’s Office published an initial report on its findings. Based on information provided by several government institutions, it found that few cases of institutional sexual violence resulted in sentences, which “generates a sense of impunity in victims and in society.”[173]

Data from the Attorney General’s Office analyzed by Human Rights Watch shows that of the 647 sexual violence complaints against teachers, school personnel, and students they received between 2020 and 2022, 592 were under preliminary investigation and 17 were sent to trial.[174]

The Attorney General’s Office and the Judiciary Council took several measures, during the Covid-19 pandemic-related confinement periods and afterwards, to improve protection from and access to services for gender-based violence,[175] to reduce impunity and re-traumatization,[176] and to train staff on sexual and gender-based violence, juvenile justice, sexual orientation and gender identity, and cybersecurity.[177] The Judiciary Council has also issued a resolution to prioritize cases of sexual violence against children, and to sanction professionals who do not undergo trainings.[178]

Additionally, the Public Policy to Eradicate Sexual Violence in Schools, which seeks to ensure access to specialized justice, non-revictimization in administrative and judicial processes, and comprehensive reparations, compels the Attorney General’s Office and Judiciary Council to design a strategy of trainings for staff involved in judicial and administrative proceedings, and evaluation of staff after trainings, among other measures.[179] In its “access to justice and reparations” aim, the policy outlines a goal to provide 90 percent of staff with at least one training on sexual violence by 2030. According to the April 2024 version of the policy, the budget for the “access to justice and reparations” aim for all activities through 2030 is US$1.5 million—the lowest budget allocation of all four aims.

From 2018 to 2022, the Judiciary Council has spent nearly US$30 million on the creation and strengthening of judicial units, including allocation of funds for hiring staff, trainings, equipment, and infrastructure.[180] The Council states that it needs a yearly budget of US$22 million to maintain its services specializing in addressing violence cases.[181]

In an earlier draft of this policy, seen by Human Rights Watch, and in a Judiciary Council letter to Human Rights Watch, the policy stated the goal to increase the number of prosecutorial staff to address sexual violence cases.[182] In the October 2023 draft submitted to the Planning Secretariat for approval, which was ultimately approved in April 2024, this action was no longer included, despite criticism from the Center for Reproductive Rights that points to the constraints that the Attorney General’s Office has to effectively investigate and prosecute sexual violence against children.[183]

The lack of additional funding and limited goals under this aim is not commensurate with the barriers survivors must overcome, as described below.

Investigation of Sexual Violence Cases

The Attorney General’s limited human and financial resources cause significant problems: They impede investigations or result in case closures; prosecutorial staff do not always have the resources and expertise to work with child and adolescent survivors; and trainings are often not enough to overcome patriarchal and revictimizing attitudes.

A dearth of prosecutors and investigation teams countrywide continues to slow down or stall investigations.[184] Staff are overworked, assigned to cases in which they may not have expertise,[185] or have limited resources,[186] all of which can negatively affect investigations. The Attorney General reported a deficit in prosecutors in 2023: Ecuador has 4.3 prosecutors per 100,000 inhabitants, almost half the regional standard of 8 per 100,000.[187] The Attorney General’s Office would need to hire nearly 1,700 more prosecutorial staff to fill the gap.

While the government has issued protocols on forensic interviewing methods that aim to minimize re-traumatization and the number of times a child has to retell their story,[188] this does not always happen in practice. According to the protocol, interviews with victims under 18 should take place in Gesell chambers, a room where children are interviewed by a specialized child psychologist, while legal counsel and prosecutors observe from another room through a one-way mirror.[189] Prosecutors fail to request this specialized testimony process from the judge, or judges do not grant it, said a Judiciary Council official.[190] Reasons vary, according to the Judiciary Council: either because of a lack of experts, adequate child-responsive infrastructure, and training, or due to instances where judges opt not to request it to avoid re-traumatization of children in the absence of adequate safeguarding measures.[191] Though the Judiciary Council publishes statistics on requests of this specialized testimony,[192] it is not able to accurately quantify how many are presented by prosecutors, how many of them are granted or denied by judges, and what the results of this testimony are.[193]

As of June 2024, the country had more than 100 Gesell chambers operated by the Judiciary Council; 74 of which are currently functional.[194] In areas where there are no operational Gesell chambers, testimony is collected by other means, including in chambers operated by prosecutors’ offices, in nearby areas, or by Zoom.[195] However, in 2023, former President Lasso’s government reduced the Judiciary Council’s budget[196] and failed to allocate funds for ongoing repairs of other Gesell chambers, according to the Judiciary Council official. The institution had to partner with national and international organizations to fund these repairs.[197]

Investigations often stall, or cases are closed because of a lack of experts, such as psychologists, doctors, and sign language interpreters, to evaluate or accompany child and adolescent complainants in judicial proceedings where they are victims. Because they are limited in number, child-focused experts are sometimes booked up for months, which leads to delays in evidence gathering, according to experts interviewed.[198] Some children with disabilities have been denied procedural accommodations and inclusive and tailored ways to provide testimony, including sign language interpretation.[199]

The case referred to in a prior section of this report, involving a school psychologist who took photos and videos of the sex acts he perpetrated against students in a school in Cuenca, is emblematic of many gaps in the prosecutorial handling of cases.[200] The prosecutor’s office took three months to conduct a raid of the psychologist’s home. This gave the perpetrator enough time to get rid of any evidence on his electronic devices, according to the lawyer who represented some of the victims.[201] Further, psychologists at the prosecutor’s office suggested archiving the cases after they interviewed many of the 13 children and reportedly found no psychological harm. Instead of seeking to verify the survivors’ stories, the lawyer said, the psychologists looked for signs of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) related to sexual abuse, and after not finding it, sought to rule out the children’s stories. This is a practice the lawyer for numerous victims characterized as “outrageous.” Prosecutorial officials, in general, tend not to believe the children, he said, and tend to be “supportive of the aggressor” rather than the survivors.[202] Human Rights Watch previously found evidence that this practice was entrenched in judicial proceedings in school-related sexual violence cases involving children and adolescents.[203]

Among prosecutors and judges, as among expert witnesses, expertise in cases involving children and adolescents is lacking.[204] Prosecutors and judges in some provinces are expected to be “multicompetent,” meaning they must be able to take on a wide range of cases in addition to sexual violence cases.

Following the Law to Prevent and Eradicate Violence Against Women of 2018, the Judiciary Council carried out a study to assess the capacity of judicial units across the country to adjudicate cases of gender-based violence against women and children. The analysis determined that some cantons benefited from having a specialized unit to attend to violence cases, while others with multicompetent or criminal judicial units could continue to attend to violence cases, but would need increased capacity.[205] The study resulted in the creation of 10 judicial units specialized in violence in regions with high levels of violence, and improvement of 55 multicompetent units in areas with low population density.[206] As a result of these changes, a Judiciary Council official said that approximately 80 percent of cases of violence against women and children are assigned to specialized units, and 20 percent are assigned to multicompetent units.[207] The latter is usually the case in cantons that have small populations, where, according to the official, it is not necessary to have specialized units for different types of cases. The official referred to the Judiciary Council study that determined it was more convenient for survivors in areas with small populations to see the closest judge, regardless of specialization, than to travel long distances to see a specialized judge.[208]

In other provinces, and better funded offices, sexual violence cases involving children are assigned to prosecutors in specialized units, such as gender units.

However, representatives from the Coalition Against Sexual Abuse of Children and Adolescents (COCASEN) noted that this lack of specialization means that children are not getting the appropriate attention they need during judicial processes that rely on multicompetent units.[209]

The Judiciary Council and Attorney General’s Office told Human Rights Watch that both institutions have made efforts to train a wide range of staff from multiple disciplines, and to increase the capacity of the judiciary system to address violence against children, gender-based and domestic violence, and restorative justice.[210] However, some prosecutorial staff who are transferred from units not related to gender-based violence are unaware of the processes for collecting expert testimony on it.[211]

Though a necessary first step for all actors involved in investigations and cases involving survivors of sexual violence, training is not enough to overcome the deep discriminatory and prejudicial challenges entrenched in judicial institutions. Prosecutors who are trained may retain counter-productive attitudes or biases that trainings alone cannot change.[212] This underscores the need for periodic and continuous training and evaluations of prosecutorial staff. The Judiciary Council has requested support from its human resources department to build indicators and parameters to evaluate staff on gender-focused trainings.[213]

Ecuador’s judicial institutions have a long way to go to ensure child and adolescent survivors feel comfortable and supported when reporting, whilst making every effort to prevent re-traumatization. “Spaces such as prosecutors’ offices where children and adolescents need to go to report are violent spaces,” said Anaís Córdova-Páez, who provides social services for survivors of digital violence at the NGO Taller de Comunicación Mujer. Some prosecutorial or police officials exhibit revictimizing and victim-blaming attitudes, and they may tell victims, “[digital] violence doesn't exist, close the account, why did you dress like that, why did you send photos to your boyfriend?” Córdova-Páez told Human Rights Watch.[214]

Trial and Sentencing

Delays in cases due to scheduling practices, low rates of cases that reach trial, and prioritization of other crimes over sexual and gender-based violence are severe obstacles to ensuring survivors find swift and adequate justice.

Sentencing rates for sexual violence vary. A 2023 analysis by Ecuador’s Ombudsperson’s Office found that based on data from the Attorney General’s Office, only 4.2 percent of complaints of sexual violence against children and adolescents between January 2015 and June 2023 received a sentence; based on Judiciary Council data, 28.5 percent of cases between January 2018 and June 2023 resulted in a sentence.[215] An analysis of Observatorio Paola Guzmán Albarracín, based on information received from the Judiciary Council and the Attorney General’s Office, found that of all sexual violence cases reported to the Attorney General’s Office between January 2020 and October 2023, only 8.9 percent resulted in a sentence.[216]

Human Rights Watch analysis show high rates of impunity for school-based sexual violence. In its 2020 investigation, Human Rights Watch found that between 2015 and 2019, only three percent of reported cases of sexual violence against children and adolescents had gone to trial.[217]

From January 2020 to December 2022, an even smaller percentage of cases went to trial, according to Human Rights Watch’s analysis of data from the Attorney General’s Office: Of the 647 complaints of sexual violence against teachers, school personnel, and students they received between 2020 and 2022, only 17 had gone to trial by February 2023. One case resulted in a conviction. No trials for cases of school-based sexual violence took place in 2021, according to data from the Attorney General’s Office.[218]

Severe delays in the court system—from initial complaint to trial and appeal—affect survivors and their families, drawing out an already re-traumatizing process. Human Rights Watch documented cases resulting in convictions within a year of reporting. However, Human Rights Watch has also documented cases with severe delays, including cases that took well over two or three years to reach a decision, or were pending a decision following appeals.[219] Despite advancements, protracted case resolution times run contrary to the judicial system’s constitutional obligation to expedite cases involving children and adolescents and can undermine an accused person’s right to a fair trial.[220]

Ecuador’s “pull system” or lottery randomly assigns judges and other staff to cases.[221] This system causes unjustifiable delays as it can be difficult to reconcile the agendas of several judicial staff who need to be present during hearings.[222] Criminal judges in Ecuador handle gender-based violence as part of broad caseloads that may also include fraud, drug, theft, and other criminal offenses. This set-up can lead to delays.[223] When preventive prison measures are set to expire, for example, in cases of killings or extortion, scheduling of hearings take priority over gender-based violence cases, according to experts interviewed by Human Rights Watch.[224]

The Judiciary Council has been working to change the lottery system to a court system,[225] which means judges would have fixed hearing schedules, as opposed to random assignments. However, it might take a few years for the system to be fully implemented.[226] In the meantime, in a positive move by Guayaquil’s court, for example, judges are now randomly assigned to cases three days a week, and have two days for fixed hearings, where gender-based violence cases are given priority, according to Pinillo Castillo.[227]

Limited Follow-up on Reparations

Comprehensive reparations, which include rehabilitation, compensation, symbolic or satisfactory measures, and guarantees of non-repetition of crimes,[228] are still out of reach for many victims of school-based sexual violence. In 2020, Human Rights Watch found that survivors and their families sought reparations beyond financial compensation, in the form of public apologies, access to medical or mental health services, and implementation of measures to prevent sexual and gender-based violence against other students.[229] However, our previous analysis of cases showed a continued focus on providing monetary compensation, a need to provide reparations for family members, and to establish necessary mechanisms to monitor compliance with reparations.

Reparations are a “super-outstanding debt,” one civil society representative said.[230] A high caseload and limited staff can lead to delays in judicial proceedings, which can mean that survivors wait years to receive reparations and compensation after very long, and most often highly re-traumatizing, judicial processes. Moreover, there is limited institutional ability to monitor compliance with reparations measures, lack of inter-institutional coordination, monetary compensation is scant, and critical mental health services are limited.[231]

In 2022, the government published the Public Policy for Comprehensive Reparations of Victims and Survivors of Violence against Women and Members of the Family Group and Femicide.[232] The policy, meant to be implemented through 2025, aimed to improve access to comprehensive reparations. It required the National Court of Justice to create an observatory of sentences, and the Judiciary Council to create a technical unit to monitor the execution of reparations and automation of judicial decisions, in 2023.[233] However, due to budget limitations and the turnover of human rights ministers between 2021 and 2023, the policy did not advance as planned, according to Ariadna Reyes Ávila, consultant for the design of the Public Policy on Reparations.[234] As of June 2024, the Ministry of Women and Human Rights initiated discussions to advance implementation of the policy.[235]

A Judiciary Council official acknowledged judicial authorities’ responsibility to follow up on reparations measures but said that “there is no human power to keep track of everything.”[236] For example, from 2018 to 2022, judicial units issued 600,000 reparations measures, but only had 700 staff to work and follow-up on cases of violence. A high volume of cases and limited capacity means technical teams prioritize following up on cases where victims are considered to be in high-risk situations or have suffered severe harm.[237] In addition to trainings on comprehensive reparations,[238] the Judiciary Council has conducted pilot projects in Orellana and Sucumbíos provinces to automate the monitoring of reparations and protection measures.[239] The projects have revealed that services are scarce, concentrated in the provincial capitals, and have reduced capacity. In a letter to Human Rights Watch, the Judiciary Council said: “Institutional response regarding judicial provisions to implement protection measures and, in particular, reparation measures is almost non-existent.”[240]

Judicial institutions should urgently put in place and strengthen mechanisms to monitor and enforce reparations. Ecuador’s new Public Policy to Eradicate Sexual Violence in Schools calls on the National Court of Justice, the Judiciary Council, and the Attorney General’s Office to establish criteria and define the scope of “comprehensive reparation” in cases of sexual violence crimes in education by 2030.[241]
 

Acknowledgments

This report was researched and written by Katherine La Puente, coordinator in the Children’s Rights Division. Elin Martínez and Margaret Wurth, senior researchers in the Children’s Rights Division, supervised the project and contributed to the research and analysis. Sebastián Abad-Jara, former research assistant in the Americas Division, contributed to the research.

Elin Martínez edited the report. Michael García Bochenek, senior counsel, and Tom Porteous, deputy program director, provided legal and program reviews. Martina Rapido Ragozzino, Americas researcher; Cristina Quijano Carrasco, Women’s Rights researcher; Cristian González Cabrera, LGBT Rights researcher; Tamir Israel, Tech and Human Rights senior researcher; and Carlos Ríos-Espinosa, associate Disability Rights director, provided expert reviews. Margaret Wurth and Margaret Knox, former senior researcher and grant writer in the Americas Division, reviewed earlier versions of the report. Brian Root, senior quantitative analyst, provided data analysis and reviewed the data used in the research for accuracy. Production assistance was provided by Joya Fadel, senior associate, Children’s Rights Division; Travis Carr, publications officer; and Fitzroy Hepkins, senior administrative manager. The Spanish version of this report was translated by Carlota Fluxá.

The social video that accompanies this report was created by Casey McCracken, multimedia producer/editor, and is based on a feature video originally produced by Laura Prieto Uribe, senior video editor/producer, and Elin Martínez. Human Rights Watch would like to thank Evelyn Yucailla, Jennifer Real, and Carla Vázquez, for sharing their stories featured in the video.

Human Rights Watch would like to thank the advocates and government officials who spoke anonymously with Human Rights Watch.

We are particularly grateful to Milagro Valverde Jiménez and Carmen Cecilia Martínez López, of the Center for Reproductive Rights; Maria Helena Carbonell of the Observatorio Paola Guzmán Albarracín; Valeska Chiriboga of CEPAM-Guayaquil; Sara Oviedo of Coalición Contra el Abuso Sexual a la Niñez (COCASEN); Sybel Martínez of Grupo Rescate Escolar; Virginia Gómez de la Torre of Fundación Desafío; Cristina Torres of CEPRODEG; and Paula Cantos Cárdenas, formerly of the Universidad San Francisco de Quito.

Human Rights Watch would like to extend gratitude to the many organizations, experts, and children’s and women’s rights activists who assisted us in conducting the research for this report. They include: Efigenia Witt, Felipe Ogaz Oviedo, and Karla Tupiza of COCASEN; Seta Carpio and Micaela Camacho of Cholas Valientes; Ana Vera of Surkuna; Carla Patiño Carreño and Myriam Pérez Gallo of Fundación Idea Dignidad; Ammy of Movimiento Por Ser Niña; Salome Parreño of Plan International; Flor María Toapanta Tumipamba of Colectiva Lilas en Acción; Anaís Córdova-Páez of Taller de Comunicación Mujer; Gabriela Guillén Trujillo of Red de Organizaciones por la Defensa de Derechos de la Niñez y Adolescencia (RODDNA); Daniel Rueda and María José Quinde of Fundación Alas de Colibrí; Johanna Romero L. of BOLENA; staff from Plataforma de Acción, Gestión e Investigación Social (PLAGCIS); Victor Sande-Aneiro of CRIN; Jessica Agila formerly of CARE; Elena Gutiérrez of Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (AECID); Nancy Barrionuevo and Katherine of Casa Amiga; Geraldina Guerra Garcés of Fundación ALDEA; Verónica Polit of Terre des Hommes; Isabela Ponce of GK; Dr. Mario Melo of PUCE Facultad de Jurisprudencia; Lissette Pardo; Tanya Torres; Stalin Oviedo; and Ariadna Reyes Ávila.

Human Rights Watch acknowledges the cooperation, provision of data, and input from current and former government officials in the Ministry of Education, Attorney General’s Office, Judiciary Council, Ombudsperson’s Office, Ministry of Public Health, and Ministry of Women and Human Rights.