Panama City.- The Panamanian Public Prosecutor’s Office received 4,599 reports of sexual abuse between last January and August, and in 78% of the cases the alleged victim is a minor, a figure revealed by the Attorney General, Luis Carlos Gómez, which does not surprise activists consulted by EFE, who have long been demanding more prevention.
Although the statistics published by the Public Ministry (MP, Prosecutor’s Office) show that the figure marks a 13% increase compared to the 4,072 in the same period of 2025, the breakdown does not specify how many cases in total affect minors, which is why the data made public by the attorney general this week stands out.
Of the total number of reports for sexual offenses filed in the first eight months of 2026, “78%” involve minors, “with the highest range of reports occurring in victims between 15 and 17 years of age, which represents 42% of the statistics,” stated Gómez.
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They apologize to the victims
The attorney general clarified that the 13% increase in the number of reports “does not necessarily mean, by itself, an equivalent increase in the occurrence” of the crime, but it “may express a greater willingness of the victims, their relatives, or their environment to report the facts.”
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It can also be interpreted “as greater confidence in the institutions and in all those mechanisms established to be able to receive the complaint, give it consistent and respectful treatment for the identification of the criminal act and its responsibility,” he added.
Gómez revealed these national figures during an event organized by the Catholic Church in which the metropolitan archbishop, José Domingo Ulloa, asked for forgiveness for the 24 reports of sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable people received by the Archdiocese of Panama between 2002 and 2025, as revealed by a report from an independent commission.
Reverend Jordi Pujol, coordinator of the independent commission, stated that although the report describes 24 cases, they know “that these are not all of them.”
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“In Panama, official figures on sexual violence only reflect a part (of what happens). (…) But fear, shame, dependency, and the fear of not being believed mean that many cases are never reported,” said Pujol.
A country that only reacts, without prevention
Lawyer and activist Suky Yard, from the Vida Mujer Foundation, told EFE that she is “painfully” not surprised by the rise in reports of sexual assault against minors, a phenomenon that the NGO she leads has been denouncing for some time.
That is why he views “with concern” what, in his opinion, is happening in Panama: the apparent “disconnect between what preventive actions should be taken” and the institutions responsible for executing them.
Current laws establish that institutions must work in a coordinated manner when it comes to children and adolescents, “but there is no program to date, as far as I know, issued, for example, by local authorities that, in conjunction with the governing institutions, goes to the sectors, to the communities, to the schools, to talk about prevention,” declared Yard.
Prevention campaigns would be effective in tackling, among other things, the sexualization of girls, or attitudes within the home, where unfortunately sexual abuse occurs.
Teenage pregnancy
According to Public Ministry statistics, between last January and August, 177 reports of doubly aggravated rape were recorded, as it is classified when the crime is committed by someone in the family environment.
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Prevention also combats teenage pregnancy, which is often the result of rape, increasing the lifelong consequences these crimes leave on the victims.
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According to the most recent 2025 Unicef report on the state of childhood in Panama, girls under 18 account for the vast majority of reported sexual violence cases, and more than 14,000 adolescents are mothers in this country, where the adolescent pregnancy rate is double that of Costa Rica and Uruguay.
“We are talking about boys and girls (victims of sexual abuse) whose future is destroyed and who, on top of that, our country does not have a psychological support program to help them face the damage that has been done to them,” the activist asserted.
