A three-year-old girl died this Monday after falling from the eighth floor of a building while she was in an apartment that functioned as an illegal daycare center in the commune of Quinta Normal, in the western area of Santiago de Chile. When the death occurred, the minor’s caregiver, a Venezuelan citizen who is in an irregular immigration situation, had gone out for 20 minutes to pick up other children who were attending her informal kindergarten. After the formalization this Tuesday, she was placed under total house arrest as a precautionary measure.
According to investigations by the Public Ministry, the victim’s parents – of Colombian nationality, according to local media – chose this place for their daughter because they did not have a place in an established educational center and the girl had been attending since March of this year. The caregiver, a 41-year-old woman, identified as Marinel Padilla, who claimed to have a degree in comprehensive education in Venezuela, charged 120,000 pesos (132 dollars) to care for preschoolers from Monday to Saturday from nine-thirty in the morning to six in the morning. late.
The incident occurred at 4 p.m. this Monday while the three-year-old girl was alone in the apartment located on Gaspar de Orense Street: “At a time when the girl was sleeping, the caregiver went out to look for other children, leaving the minor was inside the apartment and when she returned the minor had already rushed away,” reported prosecutor Manuel Zúñiga, from the North Central Prosecutor’s Office. The place where the daycare operated also did not have security measures: “In the apartment there is no protective mesh and the window that would face the balcony would be open,” said Inspector Sebastián Rojas of the Investigative Police Brigade ( POI). The victim died instantly at the scene, where emergency teams such as Firefighters and Emergency Medical Care Service (SAMU) arrived, who performed resuscitation work without success.
The caregiver is accused of the crime of homicide by omission for failing to fulfill her duty. “What she did was set up a daycare center in her apartment, on the eighth floor, without taking the necessary measures to avoid what unfortunately happened. As we understand, for WhatsApp “She promoted her daycare,” added Francisco Toloza, assistant to the North Central Prosecutor’s Office. The defendant’s lawyer, Rafael Urquieta, maintained that her client did not act intentionally: “We can all make mistakes and in this case my client made an error in caring, not an intention to kill. “Any dad who falls asleep for 20 minutes and something happens is guilty of homicide from that perspective,” he assured the press. The caregiver was left with national roots and total house arrest, but the Public Ministry appealed to toughen the measures. This Wednesday the court will decide the precautionary measure that the woman will be left with.
Anuar Quesille, a lawyer who heads the Ombudsman’s Office for Children in Chile, was dismayed by the fact: “It is a very worrying phenomenon because it is directly related to the lack of places in state kindergartens and also has to do with the difficult access to these.” ”, he said in an interview with the 24-hour news program on the TVN channel. “We know that around 7% of preschool children would be engaged in a rather informal type of care,” Marigen Narea, an academic at the School of Psychology of the Catholic University, commented to the same television channel.
The municipality of Quinta Normal confirmed being in communication with the family and through a letter they announced possible legal actions: “The municipality reserves the right to present a protection measure for the boys and girls who could be affected.”
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