The Director General of Child Protection of the Government of the Canary Islands, Sandra Rodríguez, reported on Wednesday morning that the Canary Executive dismantled three months ago a center for wards of the state and relocated six girls and adolescents to another facility after receiving a report from several minors who alerted that they were victims of sexual offenses outside the center.
"There are bad people, there are those predators who hunt vulnerable girls, who in many cases have already identified them even before they enter the protection system," warns Rodríguez. The director asks not to "re-victimize" or "stigmatize" the victims and to focus on "the bad people."
This case, detected in Gran Canaria by the minors' report, was brought to the attention of the Juvenile Prosecutor's Office, the Juvenile Court, the Police, and the Civil Guard. However, the change of center was one more measure to try to protect the girls.
This case has come to light during the presentation of the conference When Signals Speak, on the trafficking of minors for sexual exploitation. The Director General explained that, once it is detected that a minor may be a victim of sexual exploitation, protocols are activated, which may include changing the center and even the island.
"We notify, report, and even proceed to change minors from one center to another," she continued. This protocol is accompanied by training for the professionals responsible for looking after the minors "so that they are capable of detecting those things that can be overlooked" and acting in an "agile and accurate" manner.
Rodríguez also recalled Operation Triton, which resulted in the arrest of eleven people, most of them in Lanzarote, for trafficking wards of the state who were migrant minors and sending them to France. The network that operated in Lanzarote was dismantled, but the thirteen wards of the state, twelve girls and one boy, remain missing.
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