The trust that every mother places each morning when leaving her child in a daycare classroom is not among the state's management indicators, but one need only look at what happened at the ICBF Children's Garden in San Cristóbal to understand that this trust is severely damaged. On May 3rd, several families reported that an educator, Freddy Arley Castellanos Velasco, with over a decade of experience in the institution, sexually abused at least twelve children who were barely three years old. The news traveled from a WhatsApp group to national headlines in a matter of hours and unleashed a wave of indignation that, I clarify, can never be big enough. While the teacher was arrested and refused to accept charges, the mothers faced the uncomfortable silence of the institution that was supposed to protect them.

In the following days, rage took the form of protests in front of the daycare, marathon sessions on social media, and an endless parade of microphones seeking others' tears. Under pressure, the Attorney General's Office opened a preliminary investigation and ICBF management announced a "preventive closure" of the center while promising "total collaboration" with the Prosecutor's Office, a promise that sounds familiar whenever something like this happens, but rarely has an effective conclusion. However, the mothers themselves remember that their complaints had been minimized weeks earlier, when the children's behaviors changed overnight and no one activated the protocols. Distrust, like the damage, was already more present than ever.

Colombian law shines on paper. Article 18A of Law 1098 of 2006 proclaims every minor's right to "good treatment" and violence-free upbringing, and Article 44 of the Constitution declares their rights "prevalent" over those of others. But legal pedagogy evaporates when quality controls are outsourced or converted into a simple checklist. The supervision of daycare centers linked to ICBF is, at least in theory, a system of visits, audits, and technical reports; in practice, it is mostly reduced to a hastily stamped seal and faith that no one will disguise a predator as an educator. When that faith fails, the letter of the law becomes as sterile as an unsigned contract.

In criminal matters, the sanctions are severe, Article 209 of Code 599, reinforced by Law 1236 of 2008, contemplates penalties that can exceed forty years for those who carnally access a minor under fourteen years old. However, the statistics of effective convictions and the average duration of processes reduce the deterrent effect. The alleged aggressor, who did not accept charges, has already requested psychological evaluation and psychiatric examination, a move that his defense will display as a procedural trump card while families await real justice and not another archived file. The reality is brutal when the law promises an iron fist, but times and judicial strategies always move in favor of the perpetrator.

The intangible damage is just beginning to be measured. A violated minor not only loses innocence; their emotional development, relationship with authority, and capacity to trust are altered. The mothers, for their part, wonder how to rebuild a family life that now revolves around medical appointments, forensic evaluations, and sleepless nights. ICBF announced psychosocial care and legal support, but those words do not repair a broken bond or compensate for the daily anguish of watching every gesture of a child who fears closing their eyes. At the same time, some experts debate whether the public budget allocated to early childhood would even be enough to guarantee permanent therapists in the places where they are most needed; perhaps the answer is more bitter than we can imagine.

With this mixture of pain and fury, a recurring ghost reappears: the death penalty. Social media fills with homemade polls asking whether a child sexual abuser deserves anything less than the gallows, and more than one quotes biblical scripture with selective enthusiasm. However, Article 11 of the Constitution is supremely incisive that the right to life is inviolable and "there shall be no death penalty." Colombia has also ratified international commitments that shield this prohibition. Those who defend its reestablishment usually omit that the path includes a constitutional reform with political thresholds that are unattainable today. Even so, the mere mention reveals how much public trust has eroded, and only demonstrates that when people stop believing in justice, revenge appears disguised as a solution.

The debate, then, is not only legal. It is a mirror that shows the distance between official rhetoric and the reality of courtrooms, between procedure manuals and the daily life of mothers who traded bedtime stories for press releases. If the country really wants to protect its children, it will have to professionalize daycare supervision, guarantee expeditious processes, and offer comprehensive reparations worth more than an ephemeral headline. And if it wants to prevent capital punishment from trending again every time a scandal breaks, they would do well to demonstrate that the criminal system works with the efficacy it preaches. For now, and while that happens, monsters will find cracks, indignation will continue to inflame the streets, and countless children will silently carry the burden of a society that arrived too late.