From teenagers who vanish into organized crime and military custody, to newborns born into withdrawal and separated from their mothers, to toddlers growing up behind bars —the youngest in Latin America keep paying the price for institutions that look away. From CONNECTAS, we revisit three investigations that expose how the state, through neglect or direct action, is failing children when they need it most.
Children Missing in Ecuador’s Internal War
Disappearances of minors in Ecuador jumped 88% in the first year of the armed conflict — from 171 registered cases in 2023 to 322 in 2024 — with an average of three children vanishing every day as of March 2025, an investigation by Tierra de Nadie and CONNECTAS found out last year.
Girls bear the brunt: 71% of missing minors since 2021 are female, largely driven by gang recruitment for sexual exploitation, as criminal groups increasingly treat girls as commodities that can be “sold” repeatedly.
The state itself is implicated—Ecuador’s Human Rights Commission recorded 27 forced disappearances in 2024, nine involving minors, including four boys allegedly abducted and killed by members of the Air Force, with 16 soldiers now in preventive custody.
Our journalism is committed to protecting democratic values, reporting unbiased facts, verifying and contrasting, being independent.
In other words, #InvaluableJournalism
Law-Breaking Mothers? Addiction during Pregnancy, Criminalization, and a Whole Lot of Babies with Abstinence
Nearly 500 newborns in Mexico were taken to emergency rooms between 2011 and 2024 with withdrawal, intoxication, or delirium linked to their mothers’ drug use — with 2024 setting a record of 54 cases. Mexican journalist Ricardo Hernández reported on this matter a year ago.
Instead of treating addiction as a health issue, doctors in 28 Mexican states report pregnant drug users to the Attorney General’s Office as “legal medical cases,” even though personal drug use isn’t a punishable crime under Mexican law.
The fallout lands on the babies: since 2016, Jalisco’s child protection agency has recorded 1,185 children born to addicted mothers placed in welfare institutions that often lack pediatric care, detox protocols, or trained staff to treat drug-related newborn conditions.
Your contribution makes a difference. Support CONNECTAS’s investigative journalism.
Babies Behind Bars. Convicted Since Birth
Guatemalan journalist Mariela Castañón reported in 2023 that 85 children under age four were living inside Guatemalan jails alongside their incarcerated mothers, sharing the same unhealthy conditions as the inmates.
Malnutrition was rampant: 35 cases were reported since 2021 across the three prisons that house 90% of incarcerated mothers with children, despite a law requiring adequate living spaces for them.
A six-month-old girl named April died of a preventable illness after hours passed before she got medical attention—a tragedy authorities memorialized by naming a jail pediatric clinic after her, even as access to basic vaccines and care for the remaining children stayed spotty.
This text was translated with the assistance of AI
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.