Spanish
Santo Domingo. - The Public Ministry announced that it will appeal the coercive measures imposed this Wednesday by a court in Santo Domingo Oeste on a mother and stepfather accused of child abuse against two children aged six and eleven years old, in an incident that occurred in the El Café de Herrera sector.
Although the Public Ministry requested preventive detention as a coercive measure, Judge Reyes Rodríguez, from the Judicial Office of Permanent Attention Services of Santo Domingo Oeste, imposed on the accused periodic presentation and an economic guarantee of 10 thousand pesos.
The prosecuting body said it disagreed with the decision, while announcing that it will be appealed, after considering that the actions committed by the accused are serious and affect the physical and psychological development of both children.
Prosecutor Nancy Abreu, director of the Unit for the Prevention and Prosecution of Gender-Based Violence, Domestic Violence and Sexual Crimes, explained that, after being interviewed and evaluated by forensic doctors and psychologists, the children narrated the physical and psychological abuse to which they were subjected.
The eleven-year-old boy reported that his mother and stepfather kept him tied around the neck with a metal chain, without allowing him to eat and forcing him to relieve himself on his clothes. In addition, he detailed that his stepfather beat him and his six-year-old brother with his fists, followed by kicks and stomps.
The Prosecution reported that the victims are under the protection of the National Council for Children and Adolescents (Conani).
During the hearing, the Public Ministry was represented by litigating prosecutor José Manuel Polanco, who qualified the events as a violation of article 309-2 of the Dominican Penal Code, modified by Law 24-97, on Gender and Intrafamily Violence, as well as article 396 of the Code for the Protection and Fundamental Rights of Children and Adolescents (of Law 136-03).
