Lawyer Marisa Graham will be the first advocate for children and adolescents – 25/04/2019

After 14 years, it was finally decided who would occupy the post of Ombudsman for children and adolescents. It will be a defender: Marisa Graham, lawyer, specialist in family law, former president of the Council for Minors and the Family, former director of children and adolescents of the Government of the City of Buenos Aires. He held several public positions during the governments of Néstor and Cristina Kirchner. The deputies are also lawyers specializing in childhood: Juan Hernández and Fabián Repetto.

At a meeting in the Lost Steps Room of the Chamber of Deputies, the Bicameral Committee announced the names of first body of defenders, a debt of 14 years. Act 26 061 on the Comprehensive Protection of the Rights of Girls, Boys and Adolescents which created the post was sanctioned in 2005.

"I thank the bicameral committee very much. I am proud to have been meditated by ten women. I feel even better qualified to have been qualified by ten female partners. Also because they thought about a team so we could pbad the approval of the site, "said Graham emotionally.

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For twelve years nothing has happened. Only in early 2017, Childhood debt, a collective of non-governmental organizations, managed to activate the elections to judiciarise the subject. Then, a bicameral commission was formed which turned out to be composed only of women: five deputies and five senators. 63 candidates have pbaded exams.

Last October, they had been fifteen "finalists": ten women and five men –majority lawyers – having pbaded a written examination. Then, at a hearing, they presented their work plan. At the end of the year, it was necessary to choose between the candidates but, in the absence of an agreement, the decision was postponed until this Thursday.

To apply, the commission had asked all candidates to apply. Then they chose these words to talk about themselves.

Graham, Marisa: "For more than three decades, I have devoted myself to the defense of human rights, especially children, and I have worked as legislative counsel in the Chamber of Deputies and the Commission. Human Rights Treaties to the Constituent Element of 1994. I have held various executive, provincial and national functions, which has allowed me to know the functioning of public institutions and the role of social organizations dedicated to children and adolescents throughout the country. the most precious of this long experience is to know the conditions in which develop their lives and those of their families ".

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Juan Facundo Hernández: "Since the age of 18, I have started working on literacy tasks and the rights of children. other very valuable and heterogeneous actors, the Children & # 39; s Rights Collective, a public policy advocacy network and the participation of protagonists of children and adolescents in the midst of the most important crisis in our country. Training has always been oriented towards the human rights perspective, I received a lawyer in 1998 and I did a master's degree in social policy in all three branches of government, from a federal point of view and in different international organizations, with important results as regards the effectiveness of the rights of children and adolescents ".

Fabián Marcelo Repetto: "In order to defend the rights of children and adolescents, we must above all act globally in the context of the multiple dimensions that these rights imply, inscribed in the Argentine legal framework." My professional training within the state, civil society, academia and international cooperation have been preparing me for almost three decades to fulfill the function I'm applying for, with a focus on social development in focusing on law and public policies of a cross-sectoral nature. I advised governments region and country, undergraduate and postgraduate education, trained public officials ".

The figure of the child advocate was supposed to represent the voices of childhood and adolescence in the country. It must also monitor public policies for the protection of children and ensure that the rights that the state must guarantee are fully respected, such as access to education and health, and a dignified life.

At present, half of Argentine children are poor: 48.1%, according to the Children's Social Debt Barometer of the Catholic University of Argentina (UCA).

Nearly fifteen million children and adolescents live in Argentina. The inequality of their realities is very big. The greater the poverty, the greater the number of rights violated. There are children in the streets. Others live in towns and villages without sewers or drinking water. There are children who do not have access to education or health. There are undocumented children, invisible to the state. There are children beaten, abused, abused. There are girls and boys working. There are girls forced to continue unwanted pregnancies. Now they will have those who defend their rights.