Dominican Republic… The complaints highlight a persistent issue beyond the judicial system. Experts warn that silence, under-registration and institutional limitations keep thousands of children and adolescents exposed to sexual violence.
Mariela Pérez Valenzuela
The figures are striking and reveal a reality beyond the judicial system, presenting a significant social challenge. Between 2019 and 2025 the Dominican Republic received over 16,600 complaints of sexual abuse against children.
In 2024 alone, 3,066 cases were reported, highlighting the enduring nature of this crime and the significant vulnerabilities faced by countless children and adolescents across the country. Behind this data, authorities, experts and organisations agree on a worrying conclusion: the country faces a crisis of sustained child sexual violence, fuelled by silence, under-registration and lack of social protection. Its dimension is not limited to official statistics. International organisations such as the United Nations Childrens´ Fund (UNICEF) estimate that millions of children around the world have been victims of this crime, and warn that a significant proportion never gets reported.
In the Dominican case, specialists speak of a considerable “black number”, especially in the context of poverty, economic dependence and fear of social exclusion.
The patterns identified in the files and testimonies show a constant: the aggressor is usually part of the close environment of the affected person, an element that aggravates the complexity of the conflict, by hindering the complaint and perpetuating silence within homes.
For Carlos Carrera Cordón, representative of UNICEF in the Dominican Republic, “many situations are not reported due to fear, stigmatisation or because the perpetrator is part of the immediate environment,” this being one of the most worrying trends of violation of rights. To this are added structural factors such as domestic violence, abrupt discipline at home – which affects more than half of adolescents according to recent studies – and the economic precariousness of many families, where the dependence on the perpetrator acts as a brake on the accusation.
Experts also warn about the impact of means such as grooming, in which an adult establishes contact with a minor through social networks to gain their trust, manipulate them and, eventually, violate their integrity.
State response
Although the country has strengthened its legal framework and contemplates sentences of up to 30 years in prison for sexual offences against children, the State’s response remains, to a large extent, reactive.
The authorities recognise limitations in the capacity for persecution, the slowness of judicial proceedings and the need to improve the mechanisms of Defence and follow-up of victims. Another critical element is the weakness of the attention and enrolment systems. Out of thousands of reports, only a fraction has been attended through specialised mechanisms such as Gesell cameras, designed to avoid revictimisation.
In expert opinion, this gap shows the distance between the magnitude of the problem and the potential response of the justice system.
Beyond institutional scope, the phenomenon also exposes a deep cultural dimension. Sociologists and psychologists point out that there is still a tendency to normalise violence, blame survivors or minimise signs of abuse, which reinforces the concealment of the facts and makes early intervention difficult.
In this context, Unicef and other agencies insist on the need for a comprehensive strategy that combines sex education from an early age, government strengthening, specialised justice, community prevention, accessible and secure warning systems, and greater investment in protection.
In the opinion of experts, it is a collective responsibility that requires a sustained response from the State and society as a whole. So long as the gap between complaints, caution and effective justice is not closed, thousands of children and adolescents will continue to be exposed to attacks that, in many cases, occur in the place that should be safe: their own family environment. PL
(Translated by Susan Seccombe) – Photos: Pixabay
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