No Fear at School: Country Reports from Latin America

Si miedo en la escuela: Country reports on prevention of violence against children in schools in Latin America and the newly published reports showcased on the Latin America Hub microsite present an overview of the progress in the prevention of and response to violence against children in schools in six Latin American countries: Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Costa Rica and Mexico.

These reports share the in-depth knowledge of diverse experiences across Latin America and the Caribbean around the prevention of violence in school contexts, knowledge that has been carefully built based on each particular context and their needs. It is the hope of the Latin America Hub of the Coalition for Good Schools to share experience between countries in the region and the rest of the world to collectively amplify a shared vision and diverse voices of Global South practitioners in the ongoing discussion on these issues. 

Each report will be uploaded to the Sin miedo en la escuela website as they are released, leading up to the first Global Ministerial Conference on ending violence against children to be held in Bogota in November of this year.

The first of these country reports, prepared by Aulas en Paz and RedPapaz in Colombia, explores five key dimensions of this work in an effort to document progress, to identify priorities, needs and actions, to make recommendations to decision-makers, to guide future interventions, planning and investments, and to contribute to ongoing efforts to prevent violence against children and adolescents in Colombia, Latin America, and the world.

We want this knowledge and these experiences to be shared among our countries and with the rest of the world, recognizing the richness of our vision and amplifying the voice of the Global South in the global discussion on these issues.

from the Colombia Country Report, by Aulas en Paz and RedPapaz

Each of the six reports draw on the diagnostic framework developed by Safe to Learn, a global initiative to end school violence originally convened by the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children and now coordinated and hosted by UNICEF as the Safe to Learn Coalition. The Safe to Learn Diagnostic Tool is organized around five calls to action: 

1. Implement laws and policies
2. Strengthen prevention and response at the school level
3. Transforming social norms and behaviors 
4. Utilizing resources effectively
5. Generating and using evidence  

The diagnostics were carried out from September 2022 to March 2023 based on a review of 40 documents including laws, policies, and pedagogical guides, as well as 22 interviews and online surveys. Each of the six reports in this series offers a first-of-their-kind, comprehensive picture of the state of violence and its prevention in Colombia’s schools. 

The momentum that has been established must continue. The elimination of violence against children and adolescents is a long-term project, but an essential one.

from the Colombia Country Report, by Aulas en Paz and RedPapaz

The first report from Colombia explores the role of existing policies banning the use of violent discipline in schools, and the gap between those policies and how they are understood and practiced at the school level. In a country long embroiled by violent conflict, socioemotional learning and peaceful conflict resolution are key to efforts to not only end violent discipline at school but to transform norms throughout society that allows violence to continue.

The authors note how national and local alliances continue to gain strength allowing for organized action towards violence prevention, but this must continue to be informed by evidence such as that collected at the national level through the Sistema de Información Unificado de Convivencia Escolar (SIUCE), a digital platform for reporting, analysis and monitoring of cases of abuse, school violence and violations of human, sexual and reproductive rights affecting children and adolescents.

These recommendations are coupled with others focused on investment of sufficient resources to scale existing interventions proven to have positive impacts on reducing violence at school. 

“Public funding is extremely disparate in different parts of the country. Often the places with the greatest financial need have the lowest budgets. This causes extreme inequality.”

from the Colombia Country Report, by Aulas en Paz and RedPapaz

Visit the Si miedo en la escuela microsite now to read the Colombia report, and stay tuned for reports from Argentina, Chile, Peru, Mexico and Costa Rica.

You can also watch the webinar recording from the launch of the series on YouTube here.