Book: “Del Dicho al Derecho”. Research relaunched by Hogar de Cristo Chile in March 2021.

Being a Girl at Protected Residential Institutions in Chile.

The traces left by vulnerability, poverty, social exclusion, and violence, particularly in girls and adolescents, enlarge their gender inequalities, rooted in a society that determines their future and opportunities. 

Experiences of sexual violence, as a crime with clear gender bias, requires an understanding framework about gender transversality inequality and tools for their therapeutic intervention.

From an intersectional gender view, the research collects concepts and practices to easy daily work with girls and adolescents living in protection residential institutions, offering tools to handle traumas caused by sexual abuse and other abuses. It also considers consequences that the residential system may have on the mental and physical health of girls and adolescents.

After two years of work, Hogar de Cristo delivers this material to the teams, so they can face stereotypes and discriminations that girls and adolescents painfully suffer, as consequences of gender intersectionality. It’s being a woman, being minor, live in poverty, social exclusion, and has faced grave violations of their essential rights.

A tragedy hiding in plain sight!

The Book exposes the traumatic reality of Girls sexually abused, raped, victimized, and re-victimized when under the custody of a legal system designed to protect them. From total girls/adolescents admitted by the courts in these residences (Sename), 89% have faced sexual abuse and rape, compared with 15% of boys/adolescents.

Research updates the previous study of the foundation (2017) with the same title but this time including a Gender Perspective, an essential variable to understand the profound differences and impact on females and males living in protected residential institutions that expose girls/adolescents to much higher-risks and vulnerability, harassed and groomed by criminal networks that see them as a source to recruit for commercial sexual exploitation, and other abuses. Unacceptable.

If you would like to know more about this robust research of Hogar de Cristo Chile (Spanish version) let us know at email contacto@hogardecristousa.org