Lucília Gago spoke this morning at the IV European Congress on “Child-Friendly Justice – The right to education”, in Lisbon, in which she took the opportunity to draw attention to some of the system’s flaws in relation to juvenile justice and what she called of “nonconformities in the field of educational guardianship intervention”.
In the opinion of the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR), the recent closure of residential units in educational centers, combined with the “insignificant record of inquiries and requests for the opening of the jurisdictional phase”, led to a situation that she classified as “incongruous”.
“The global number of hospitalizations declared, 136, surpassed the established capacity in February and March of this year, 134”, he pointed out.
He warned, on the other hand, that “the situation inspires the greatest apprehension regarding the shortage of human resources and to increasing entry into the national territory of unaccompanied young people of their respective families.”
The PGR pointed out that they are “uprooted, undocumented young people, of different origins and origins” and that do not have the capacity to support themselves.
“With a high probability they could denote educational needs manifested in the practice of criminally relevant facts, increasing the difficulties on the ground that are strongly felt today”, highlighted Lucília Gago.
For the PGR, today’s school is faced with “countless challenges”, because of the “increasing multiculturalism of the children and young people who attend it”, which has required “redoubled and Herculean” efforts from various educational professionals so that “the full integration of students and equal opportunities”.
“This reinforcement will fail, as we believe, if there is no greater offer and versatility in school paths, diversifying curricular content and providing better correspondence with the interests of students, valuing their potential and skills, taking into account their growing multiculturalism, while keeping in mind the pulse of the job market”, he argued.
” an option of the legislator” which he sees as “highly questionable”.
According to Lucília Gago, this has “perverse consequences”, which leads institutionalized young people to make “successive escapes”, which only contributes to their lack of protection, “projecting them into the absurdity of precocious and unprepared, and in every way counterproductive, autonomies”.
“All to the detriment of school attendance and progression, catapulting young people in residential care into begging, prostitution, consumption and dependence on drugs and alcohol”, he criticized.
He also lamented “the scarcity of specialized equipment to enable a full response in the field of mental health problems”.
Juvenile delinquency on the rise
For her part, the Minister of Justice, also present at the opening session, cited data from the Annual Internal Security Report (RASI) to state that juvenile delinquency has increased since 2021 and that this is reflected in the increase in the number of educational guardianship investigations .
“Consequently, the potential application of the most intrusive guardianship measure for children, hospitalization in an educational center, will tend to increase”, pointed out Rita Júdice.
The minister pointed out that the young people to whom the measure is applied arrive at educational centers with an average age of 16 and with “increasingly complex deviant paths”.
