Youth from IDIPRON raise their voice against the sexual exploitation of children and adolescents

• Uploaded to Transmilenio and with all kinds of speeches, a group of young people from the Regional Institute for Children and Youth (IDIPRON) performed a theatrical pedagogy for public transport users in Bogotá.

• Awareness and training of social actors is one of the strategies with which it seeks to inform about the sexual exploitation of children and adolescents (ESCNNA), its causes, modalities and impacts and to strengthen the development of the capacity of the subjects, the prevention of this crime and the integral protection of the victims.

Bogota, DC, September 26, 2022. On the International Day Against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents, a civic cultural group from IDIPRON, banner in hand, boarded public transport to promote the care of this population, the reduction and elimination of crime in the city.

Through invisible theater, a technique that performing arts professor Edison Roldan defines as “a method in which actors enter a certain space and people do not expect them to be actors, but instead, in an unexpected moment, they begin to act to convey message,” the group performed two sketches on CSEC (Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Boys, Girls and Adolescents), along the articulated route that goes from Jiménez to Portal Américas with interventions inside and outside the bus.

The District Committee against CSEC, led by IDIPRON, is carrying out awareness and prevention of this problem in the city, promoting joint responsibility in the care and protection of children and adolescents by transforming imaginaries and practices that allow the reduction and elimination of the crime of sexual exploitation of minors in the Capital Region.

Margarita Chaustre, a professional from the Sub-Directorate for the Family, pointed out that “the subjects are speaking out of social mobilization, chanting slogans, handing out bracelets and spreading information so that we are aware of the protection of the life, body and sexuality of all our children, girls and adolescents” .

During this event, IDIPRON’s young people of art and culture between the ages of 18 and 28 were able to show their developed talents in the units of comprehensive protection, places where they receive theater, percussion, singing, painting and dancing. These young people attending these processes of the Regional Institute for the Protection of Children and Youth are part of the vulnerable population in Bogotá.

Today they are the ones involved in civic culture campaigns such as: #RompamoslaRed against ESCNNA, issues of recycling, sustainability, mobility and teenage pregnancy. When they take the stage, as on September 23rd, they demonstrate how they are progressing in their processes of resilience, attitude change and commitment to self and society.

From the young for the young

Rick, as he likes to be called because he is not comfortable with his name, is 20 years old and has been associated with IDIPRON for 12 years. It was his mother who took him to the facility after she found out about his drug use and constant absences from his classes.

He grew up in the neighborhood of Kazuca, south of Bogotá, and believes that the environment he was born into influenced his behavior and the way society saw him. Rick is a lover of poetry, and since reading his first philosophy book, he has explored everything related to the soul, existence and love, the latter of which has become – according to Rick – the subject that torments people the most.

He got to know this regional subject in 2010, together with his twin brother and another one older than him, because “my sister was the only one who didn’t get into bad steps” and since then, thanks to the entire team of the institution, he learned to play the flute, saxophone and drums, to act and dance. He likes art and now wants to study performing arts, continue his studies in the tenth and eleventh grades and persevere in his goal of becoming educated in philosophy.

For Rick, his interest in studying philosophy sums him up in the enigma of understanding society and overcoming the fears that remain in his life.

The Secretary of Social Integration through the Directorate of Population and Sub-Directorate of Families, the Secretary of Security and Convenience, IDIPORON and Transmilenio attended this meeting.

Currently, the Regional Secretariat for Social Integration is the Technical Secretary of the Regional Council for Comprehensive Care for Victims of Domestic Violence, Violence and Sexual Exploitation under Agreement 152 of 2005.