President out of focus on shelter scandal

Panama President, Laurentino Cortizo was unfocused when he spoke to the nation on Wednesday about the physical, psychological, and sexual abuse of minors in shelters in the country says Olga De Obaldia, executive director of the Panamanian chapter of Transparency International.

Her views are echoed by lawmakers,  politicians. Psychiatrists  and civil society leaders

 For example, he spoke of increasing penalties, but not of the comprehensive protection of children,  said De Obaldia.

In addition, he asked to be complainants  the institutions that have people who are part of the group of “responsible authors”, either by omission or commission.

He did not announce the delivery of funds to, for example, “appoint an interdisciplinary team of doctors, psychologists, social workers and psychiatrists that can provide immediate care to these children.”

“The most vulnerable children in the country have paid for institutional corruption with their physical, mental and emotional integrity. When we think that corruption does not cost us, that the party must fulfill its political commitments by appointing its supporters in positions where technicians are actually needed, these are the results, ” said De Obaldia.

On  Wednesday the director of Senniaf, Mayra Silvera, said that the affected minors were sent to other shelters and some returned to their homes.

Romulo Roux, president of the Democratic Change party, pointed out that the president’s message was “purely formal.” In his view, that the Senniaf and the Ministry of Social Development are complainants “generates a lot of distrust, since the level of responsibility of both entities is not known.”

Independent deputy Juan Diego Vásquez said that the president said “nothing.”

Vásquez complained that deputies of the ruling Democratic Revolutionary Party bench defend the president and ave politicized the issue. “Who has politicized this issue is not the Assembly, it was the President of the Republic, who names the inept for being brothers, friends, family, partners instead of naming qualified people,” he said.

Cortizo spoke on the issue nine days later, amid citizen protests that emerged after the report made by the Women’s Commission of the Assembly, on the vulnerability of the rights of minors in shelters.

The president asked Senniaf, as its regent, and Mides, to become  plaintiffs in the processes, to present a project to increase penalties for child abuse and carry out an audit of the subsidies that the State provides to shelters.