metropolitan

Reports of sex abuse, neglect at orphanage

Anonymous reports claim that minors are underfed and abused at Ciudadela Jesús y María.

Mides wants to audit the AMA-ME foundation, which runs the orphanage with state subsidies.

LA PRENSA

sympathetic: Mides general secretary Rina Rodríguez talked to children removed from the Ciudadela Jesús y María orphanage. 1035928

Officials at the Ministerio de Desarrollo Social (Mides) have filed a complaint with the Fiscalía de Familia against Ciudadela Jesús y María (CJYM), an orphanage run by the AMA-ME foundation in Howard, for alleged abuses of minors.

"The sisters of CJYM complained that children were mistreated," said Rina Rodríguez, general secretary of Mides. "Then we received an anonymous call that saying that children were malnourished, caretakers had been fired and that the cleaning staff were the ones caring [for the children].

Mides has also asked the Contraloría General to conduct an audit of the foundation, because, in addition to the $235,000 Mides provides annually to AMA-ME, last year the Ministerio also gave them "$80,000 in equipment --refrigerators, washing machines, stoves, among other things-- and those items are nowhere to be found."

AMA-ME, a non-governmental organization that works with at-risk children. Together with the CJYM, they receive a total of $235,000 in state subsidies.

Meanwhile, Rodríguez reported that AMA-ME executive director Itza Pérez Polo's monthly salary increased from $800 to $3,000, "without authorization from Mides, while the conditions of the buildings [at CJYM] were in a state of abandonment and filthiness."

A former cook at the foundation, who asked to remain anonymous, explained that "some nights cars would drive up and take the boys to the movies. The worst part was that this would happen after 10 p.m. There was no control."

"The abuse was directed especially at the girls, who were less loved," he said. "One night they threw three of them out when it was pouring, which I reported to Mides. And those in charge knew that some of the young men even had sex with the girls."

Mides decided to transfer the 48 minors at the CJYM to the Metro Amigo foundation, in Tocumen last Monday. But 19 of the children fled through the jungle surrounding the Howard orphanage.

Pérez Polo, who denied accusations that she had received an unauthorized raise in pay, admitted that children had been mistreated at the CJYM. She said that her lawyers will take the next step in the matter, and that she has not ruled out filing a complaint against Mides.