Por Pía Greene, directora ejecutiva de Fundación Amparo y Justicia
In less than 24 hours, six people were murdered in the Metropolitan Region. Among them, a 17-year-old teenager on his way home who was shot in broad daylight. The incident is shocking — but sadly, no longer surprising.
These cases, increasingly less isolated, demand urgent attention. Organized crime has become a driving force behind homicides of children and adolescents. In 2025, 40.4% of these deaths were linked to that context — a higher proportion than observed in homicides overall. Firearms were used in more than half of the cases, and six out of ten occurred on public roads.
Four years ago in Chile, we barely talked about organized crime. Two years ago, we were just beginning to acknowledge it. Today, in March alone, a press monitoring effort has identified seven murders of minors, at least half of them potentially linked to this dynamic. The latest Statistical Bulletin from the Public Prosecutor’s Office shows that completed, attempted, and frustrated homicides against children and adolescents rose from 351 in 2024 to 387 in 2025 — a 10% increase, equivalent to one case every 22 hours.
These homicides do not follow a single logic. Among younger children, many deaths occur in contexts of domestic violence. Among adolescents, however, organized crime takes hold with greater force. But we cannot forget that a 14-year-old does not have the capacity to make fully informed decisions — which is why they so often end up as victims of these organizations.
Criminal gangs operate like businesses and constantly need new generations to sustain their operations. In that context, a child inside organized crime is a child potentially headed toward death.
What makes the picture even more troubling is that many of these minors were not unknown to the State. According to data from the Undersecretary for Children, around 90% of children who die from violent causes had been in contact with public institutions at some point in their lives — whether through the school system, social programs, or protective services. The State knew who they were. The problem is that this information is fragmented, and there is no coordination framework that allows timely identification of those at greatest risk.
This is not only a public safety problem — it is a child protection crisis. The evidence is compelling: an effective response requires case-by-case specialized investigation, inter-institutional protocols, and timely information sharing.
Every homicide of a child or adolescent must be analyzed in depth: their life trajectory, their environment, and the protection networks that should have been in place. Only then will it be possible to identify patterns and design public policies that prevent — not merely react.
Today there is limited technical capacity among the teams working on these cases, which hinders not only justice, but also the understanding of an increasingly prevalent phenomenon. The Intersectoral Group for the Prevention and Investigation of Homicides of Children and Adolescents, which brings together eleven state agencies, has already developed a diagnostic assessment and is working on concrete proposals with an emphasis on inter-institutional coordination.
That is progress. But without sustained effort and without the political will to translate it into action, we will continue to see children killed without understanding what went wrong — or how to prevent it.
