As a global alliance of child care and protection experts from around the world, including our member in Guatemala, CONACMI, we stand in solidarity with our child protection peers in Guatemala, working tirelessly to improve the quality of care and protection for all Guatemala’s children.

We echo their calls for the rights, care and protection of all Guatemalan children to be upheld. As always, we remain steadfastly committed to the recommendations of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Guidelines on the Alternative Care for Children, which assert the rights of children to be raised in safe and loving families whenever possible.

In the wake of this tragedy, as the Government of Guatemala seeks to further its own commitment to upholding children’s rights, we offer our support, and our combined experiences in care reform, deinstitutionalization and family strengthening, to ensure all Guatemala’s children benefit from a strong national care system, able to both strengthen families and uphold children’s rights to quality alternative care when needed.

Family for Every Child joins the people of Guatemala as they mourn the deaths of dozens of girls who perished in the fire at the Virgen de la Asunción Safe Home. We express our deepest condolences to the families of the girls who died and to all the children who have had to suffer this situation.

As a global alliance of experts in child protection and care, including our member in Guatemala, CONACMI, we stand in solidarity with our colleagues, committed to  child protection in Guatemala, and working tirelessly to improve the quality of care and protection in the compliance with the rights of children in Guatemala.

We echo their calls for the rights, care and protection of all Guatemalan boys and girls to be respected. As always, we remain firmly committed to the recommendations of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the United Nations ‘Guidelines on the Alternative Care of Children’, which affirm their right to be raised in safe and nurturing families, whenever possible.As a consequence of this tragedy, we see favorable that the Government of Guatemala promotes its own commitment to the rights of children, and we offer our support and diverse experiences on issues related to child care reform, deinstitutionalization and strengthening family, to ensure that all children in Guatemala benefit from an efficient and timely system that   strengthens families and guarantees the rights of children to quality alternative care when necessary.