One year ago today, 41 girls were killed in a fire in an orphanage in Guatemala. The girls, aged 14 to 17, had used the occasion of International Women's Day to protest the sexual abuse they suffered in the institution - and were locked in their dormitory as punishment. When the fire broke out, no one came to unlock the door.

 

Over the last year, we have filed a case with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to protect the survivors of the fire and pressured the Guatemalan government to enforce the right of every child to grow up with a family. All over the world, children are locked up and restrained in orphanages and institutions where the same patterns of abuse and neglect play out day after day. DRI's Worldwide Campaign to End the Institutionalization of Children is fighting to stop abuses against children in orphanages and institutions. Read DRI Executive Director Eric Rosenthal's op-ed in the Washington Post here.