Please write to Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo Cabrera asking him to guarantee the safety of Anna Maria Pichol Gaurcas and Nicolas Pichol Calel and their families. AI s newly released report on torture of children, Hidden Scandal, Secret Shame , concentrates on violations carried out by states and on abuses by armed opposition groups. The prevalence of torture of girls by governments or armed opposition groups is shocking. Though girls are entitled to the protection from all forms of violence guaranteed by the Children s Convention, even this wide-ranging protection does not address their double susceptibility.
Girls are at increased risk of physical, sexual and psychological abuse from an early age.
In many societies, preferences for boys may endanger the life of a baby girl, while culturally determined notions about the greater economic and social value of boys often means that girls suffer constant forms of discriminatory ill-treatment, including lack of health care, inadequate food, and reduced access to education. The AI report does not address violence committed by private individuals, which accounts for much of the abuse inflicted on children, but it does publicly hold governments accountable for protecting all children against violence by private individuals which may amount to torture. Demonstrations in Colombo, Sri Lanka after the killing and disappearance of two teen-aged children. Girls in the public sphere may also be detained or abused for gender-based reasons for example, because of their opposition to dress or behavior codes and once in detention are at risk of sexual torture, including rape, sexual humiliation and harassment. The sexual harassment of street children who are girls is so common as to go almost unnoticed, and when they are subjected to torture or ill-treatment, it almost always includes abuse of a sexual nature.