State Crime: First Sentence

By Carolina Escobar Sarti / Jonathan Lott

During Jimmy Morales’ government, a state crime was committed. It was on March 8, 2017, when 56 girls and adolescents were locked for hours in a classroom, 7 x 6.8 meters, where there was not even a bathroom. After breakfast, which they had to eat while enduring a nauseating stench of feces and urine seeping under the door, they asked to use the bathroom and to cover themselves from the cold. However, tension mounted, and the “responsible authorities” decided to keep the padlock on the door.

Several witnesses state that at that time, the president ordered police not to leave the Virgen de la Asunción Safe Home during the night of March 7 and the morning of March 8, 2017, even breaking the chain of command of the National Civil Police (PNC). Wilson López Maldonado, deputy police commissioner, declared at the time that the fire “could have been prevented” without Morales’ intervention, according to an Agencia Ocote publication on August 12, 2025. Another witness affirmed that it was Morales who ordered the adolescents to remain locked inside the classroom where they were burned.

According to another testimony, it was then that one girl lit a mattress with a match, convinced that this would make them open the door. But nobody did. Nobody. Not even the police subinspector stationed outside—now sentenced to 12 years in prison—who at the time said: “Let those daughters of bitches burn.” Nine minutes and many cries for help later, several girls were already dead and others were gravely injured. Days later, more died, bringing the horror to a total: 41 lives lost. Only 15 survived. Firefighters were allowed to enter 40 minutes after the fire began.

I ask myself the same question one survivor asked during a hearing: “What was in the hearts of these people for them to ignore our cries for help, that made them refuse to open the door when we were begging for aid?” And I also ask: What kind of monstrous society produces people like Morales, who, as president, orders girls locked in and left to burn? Or police who did not open the door while the smell of burning human flesh spread and the screams grew fainter? Or a society where nobody broke the padlock by force to try to save them? In what society do people applaud the deaths of 41 girls, as so many did on social networks after the fire? In what society are girls and adolescents abandoned like this, while today an average of at least 20 minors between the ages of 10 and 18 become pregnant every day? In this society. In ours.

The tragedy did not begin on March 7, as some recount, when a group of adolescent boys and girls tried to leave what was supposed to be a state refuge: the Virgen de la Asunción Safe Home. That night, they climbed onto rooftops, shouted, and protested for multiple reasons that had already been publicly denounced many times before—among them torture and rape. Hours later, with the support of the National Civil Police, many were forced back into the very place from which they had fled, a place that was neither a home, nor safe, nor worthy of a virgin’s name.

 It was then that the girls were locked in the classroom and the boys in the auditorium. But the tragedy had begun centuries earlier in this country, when exclusion became the norm and bread was never enough for all.

Rights Denied

In Guatemala, the right to a dignified life has been denied to children for generations—especially girls. There is a historic debt that has yet to be settled. That is why the question should never have been whether or not minors should be institutionalized. If society as a whole (political and civil) protected children, this issue would not even be up for debate. Here, most children receive no protection anywhere.

The families of the victims and the survivors of the fire were criminalized, forgotten, or exploited by past governments. They were also denied a pension that did not exceed the minimum wage, as if that money came from the officials’ own pockets—while the corrupt dance of millions hidden in secret funds carried on.

As if being born and living in Guatemala were a gift, and not an act of daily heroism for millions of families who, for generations, have lived without education, in poverty, without justice, without housing, without healthcare, and exposed to countless forms of violence.

What is needed here is a comprehensive child and adolescent protection system that works organically. And this will only be possible when children are placed at the center of all political agendas of the State—not just by creating an institute for children in “special protection situations.”

On August 12, Judge Ingrid Vanessa Cifuentes issued a ruling for this state crime against the first group of seven former officials. I have said it before and I repeat it: no sentence will ever be equivalent to the magnitude of the crime committed that March 8, because nothing will bring back the lives of those 41 girls. Nevertheless, this slow and exhausting judicial process continues for the next groups of former officials and now also includes Jimmy Morales and his then-advisor, since Judge Cifuentes ordered the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) to investigate them to determine their possible participation in the events.

I recognize the judge, who held more than 120 hearings during the trial, and the social organizations which accompanied the survivors and families of the victims. Patience, persistence, and strong argumentation were fundamental in every hearing.

One of the slogans of several March 8th commemorations has been: “I don’t want to feel brave when I go out into the street, I want to feel free.” That is what I wish for every girl and adolescent in Guatemala: that our actions, our voices, and our unity help create spaces of freedom for survivors of all fires, as well as for the families of those who are no longer here. May justice and truth continue to speak.

The Sentenced

Carlos Rodas, former head of the Secretariat of Social Welfare (SBS), and Santos Torres, former director of the Home, were sentenced to 25 years in prison, 20 of them non-commutable.

Brenda Chamán, former head of the Department of Special Protection against Abuse at the Safe Home, was sentenced to 17 years, 12 of them non-commutable. Gloria Castro, former official of the Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office, received a non-commutable 6-year sentence.

Former PNC subinspector Lucinda Marroquín was sentenced to 13 non-commutable years, while former PNC deputy commissioner Luis Broja received 11 years, 6 of them non-commutable.

Harold Flores, former child protection attorney of the Attorney General’s Office, was acquitted of the four charges brought against him.

As a measure of dignified reparation, the judge ordered the President of the Republic, Bernardo Arévalo, to issue a public apology in a formal act, accompanied by SBS authorities and senior PNC officials. In this apology, the State must acknowledge its responsibility and the suffering caused to the victims and their families.

Carolina Escobar Sarti is a writer, press columnist, social researcher, and National Director of Asociación La Alianza, an organization working with children and adolescents who are victims of sexual violence and human trafficking. She holds a PhD in Sociology and Political Science from the University of Salamanca. Forbes included her among the 100 most powerful women in Latin America in 2019, 2020, and 2021. cescobarsarti@gmail.com