This morning, Fundación Amparo y Justicia presented a new edition of its study on the reporting and processing of cases of sexual offenses against children and adolescents in Chile, based on data from the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
The report reveals that, over the past seven years, the percentage of cases that end up being closed without further action increased from 61.1% to 74.3%, making it the most frequent outcome in this type of investigation.
The Executive Director of Fundación Amparo y Justicia, Loreto Moore, said “the closing of a case does not mean that a crime did not occur. We are concerned that this institutional response is weakening and that victims are losing access to justice.
Key findings of the study
- In 2024, provisional case closure was the most frequent outcome in investigations into sexual offenses against children and adolescents.
- Only 40.1% of victims accessed an investigative interview with video recording, despite it being a key tool for obtaining high-quality testimony in highly vulnerable contexts.
- Between 2006 and 2024, reports of these crimes quadrupled, rising from 9,693 to 40,754 annual cases. For the third consecutive year, the number of reports exceeded 40,000.
According to the Head of Research and Public Policy at Fundación Amparo y Justicia, Nicolás Pietrasanta, the findings confirm the need to “establish clear criteria for closing cases and to create review mechanisms, both internal and external and independent, that make it possible to assess the justification for these decisions and, when appropriate, reconsider them.”
Launch of the study
The presentation of the report’s main findings was given by Nicolás Pietrasanta.
Afterwards, the results were discussed by Children’s Ombudsman Anuar Quesille; Maurizio Sovino, Director of the Specialized Unit on Sexual and Sexual Exploitation Crimes at the National Prosecutor’s Office; and Pía Greene, researcher at the Center for Security and Organized Crime Studies at Universidad San Sebastián, who provided perspectives from their respective fields.
The event was moderated by María José Bowen, Deputy Director of Legal Affairs and Public Policy Advocacy at Fundación Amparo y Justicia. María José Bowen.
Read the full report at https://ayj.lajuguera.cl/biblioteca-digital/estudio-estadistico-faj-2025/
