Social representations about the rights restoration process of an adolescents’ group in Medellin Colombia

Abstract

This article exposes an analysis about the investigation´s results about social representations concerning the rights restoration process of adolescents. These adolescents lived through this process after becoming victims of commercial sexual exploitation in the city of Medellin - Colombia. The research was carried out in an exploratory, descriptive and qualitative manner taking the theory of social representations. Five adolescents participated in this research; they had a background in the system of child and adolescent protection. The results show us that the central nucleus of the social representations of the restoration of rights that the specialized institutions who protect the adolescents – the closed institution – is equaled to the process itself. The peripheral system of social representations unveils tensions about 1. recognizing sexual exploitation as a violation of rights and 2. the ways that adults and adolescents relate to each other in the protected institutions. It is concluded that recognizing sexual exploitation as a violation of rights, and the intergenerational relationships of affection and trust were a reason for the successful development of rights restoration.