WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.800 --> 00:00:01.469 Educators. 2 00:00:01.469 --> 00:00:06.753 What you will be able to do, with the law behind you, in your everyday teaching 3 00:00:06.753 --> 00:00:12.103 practice: teach with confidence, act on a warning sign and protect your students 4 00:00:12.103 --> 00:00:14.043 knowing the law supports you. 5 00:00:14.363 --> 00:00:16.144 Section 1 · What this Code protects for you The law did not come to watch over 6 00:00:16.144 --> 00:00:17.149 you: it came to back up your work well done. 7 00:00:17.469 --> 00:00:24.285 The new Criminal Code (Ley 74-25, amended by Ley 44-26) has been in force since August 2026. 8 00:00:24.285 --> 00:00:30.138 If someone threatens you — in person, in writing or over WhatsApp — to make you 9 00:00:30.138 --> 00:00:34.361 change a grade or keep quiet, that conduct is an offence. 10 00:00:34.361 --> 00:00:40.511 In a public school, a threat aimed at bending an act of your duties: 5 to 10 years. 11 00:00:40.831 --> 00:00:47.492 Publicly imputing a specific fact that damages your honour, your good name or 12 00:00:47.492 --> 00:00:54.326 your image is defamation, whatever public form is used — social media included. 13 00:00:54.326 --> 00:01:01.160 An offensive expression that imputes no specific fact is insult, expressly also 14 00:01:01.160 --> 00:01:05.745 “by streaming, by electronic means or in cyberspace”. 15 00:01:05.745 --> 00:01:12.320 Ley 44-26 lowered the penalty for defamation: from 2-5 years to 1-2 years of 16 00:01:12.320 --> 00:01:13.531 prisión menor. 17 00:01:13.851 --> 00:01:18.199 When you report a suspicion of abuse against a student in good faith, the law 18 00:01:18.199 --> 00:01:21.249 declares you exempt from criminal and civil liability. 19 00:01:21.249 --> 00:01:25.710 The law did not come to watch over you: it came to back up your work well done. 20 00:01:26.030 --> 00:01:28.742 Section 2 · What now has a name A shared language with families, with the school leadership and with the Fiscalía. 21 00:01:29.062 --> 00:01:35.245 Intimidating, insulting, mocking, encouraging exclusion or isolation “in the 22 00:01:35.245 --> 00:01:41.673 educational sphere” in order to shame, humiliate or hinder the development of a 23 00:01:41.673 --> 00:01:42.975 person or group. 24 00:01:42.975 --> 00:01:49.728 Ley 44-26 removed the word “bullying” from the legal text; the conduct is the same. 25 00:01:49.728 --> 00:01:56.236 If the victim is a minor, has a disability or is in a situation of vulnerability 26 00:01:56.236 --> 00:02:03.152 — or if the harassment leads to suicide — the offence is aggravated to prisión mayor. 27 00:02:03.472 --> 00:02:08.731 Repeated harassment that disrupts everyday life — aggravated “within a working, 28 00:02:08.731 --> 00:02:13.857 educational or training relationship” — and cruel or degrading treatment that 29 00:02:13.857 --> 00:02:18.517 demeans dignity, aggravated if the victim is a student who is a minor. 30 00:02:18.517 --> 00:02:24.309 The result: a shared language with families, with the leadership and with the Fiscalía. 31 00:02:24.629 --> 00:02:26.364 Section 3 · Your relationship of authority The law protects that trust by 32 00:02:26.364 --> 00:02:27.529 increasing the penalty for anyone who betrays it. 33 00:02:27.849 --> 00:02:34.931 Abusing authority aggravates sexual assault, rape and sexual harassment in 34 00:02:34.931 --> 00:02:36.655 academic settings. 35 00:02:36.655 --> 00:02:43.647 Subjecting a minor in your care or under your supervision to humiliation, 36 00:02:43.647 --> 00:02:48.724 pressure or blackmail is an offence in its own right. 37 00:02:48.724 --> 00:02:55.806 Ley 136-03 penalizes physical, psychological or sexual abuse by anyone holding 38 00:02:55.806 --> 00:03:01.649 authority, custody or supervision — and mentions the teacher. 39 00:03:01.969 --> 00:03:09.549 Someone who is a guarantor of another person's protection and who, being able to 40 00:03:09.549 --> 00:03:16.981 prevent an outcome, does not prevent it, may be liable by omission. 41 00:03:16.981 --> 00:03:24.561 In aggravated abandonment, the maximum penalty of 20 to 30 years applies ONLY 42 00:03:24.561 --> 00:03:32.141 where the abandonment is followed by death and is committed by someone who had 43 00:03:32.141 --> 00:03:37.243 authority — father, mother, guardian, teacher. 44 00:03:37.243 --> 00:03:42.124 None of this turns every lapse into a crime. 45 00:03:42.444 --> 00:03:46.319 The MINERD Código de Ética (Orden 22/2023, Arts. 46 00:03:46.319 --> 00:03:51.810 10 to 13) maps the practical path: a strictly academic and formative 47 00:03:51.810 --> 00:03:58.269 relationship, group and institutional digital communication, no private meetings 48 00:03:58.269 --> 00:04:00.610 outside the school, no gifts. 49 00:04:00.930 --> 00:04:05.102 Section 4 · Reporting: when, to whom, how Reporting protects you; staying silent exposes you. 50 00:04:05.422 --> 00:04:10.999 From the moment you know OR SUSPECT abuse or violation of a student's rights. 51 00:04:10.999 --> 00:04:16.794 The obligation reaches teaching professionals, principals and officials, in both 52 00:04:16.794 --> 00:04:18.750 public and private schools. 53 00:04:18.750 --> 00:04:24.545 Failing to inform the authorities about ill-treatment or sexual offences against 54 00:04:24.545 --> 00:04:27.152 a minor is an offence: 2 to 3 years. 55 00:04:27.152 --> 00:04:31.571 For a public servant who refrains, the penalty is aggravated. 56 00:04:31.891 --> 00:04:37.417 The internal route: the school leadership and the Guidance and Psychology team, 57 00:04:37.417 --> 00:04:41.404 who escalate to the MINERD district and regional offices. 58 00:04:41.404 --> 00:04:46.510 For child abuse, referral to the Ministerio Público or to CONANI within a 59 00:04:46.510 --> 00:04:49.658 maximum of 24 hours (Orden 22/2023, Art. 42). 60 00:04:49.658 --> 00:04:55.883 Your report to an administrative or judicial authority already discharges the legal duty. 61 00:04:56.203 --> 00:05:02.425 Listen without interrogating, write down what you saw and heard, with the date, 62 00:05:02.425 --> 00:05:05.811 and hand the record over through the route. 63 00:05:05.811 --> 00:05:11.481 Do not investigate, do not stage confrontations, do not promise absolute 64 00:05:11.481 --> 00:05:14.080 confidentiality: promise support. 65 00:05:14.080 --> 00:05:20.223 Professional secrecy does not stop you from reporting; whoever reports in good 66 00:05:20.223 --> 00:05:21.483 faith is exempt. 67 00:05:21.803 --> 00:05:24.509 Section 5 · The digital environment A student's phone is an extension of their private life. 68 00:05:24.829 --> 00:05:32.049 Spreading threatening, insulting or intimidating messages in order to humiliate, 69 00:05:32.049 --> 00:05:35.822 degrade or isolate is cyber-harassment. 70 00:05:35.822 --> 00:05:43.042 Creating or spreading false or altered images, videos or audio “by means of 71 00:05:43.042 --> 00:05:50.200 montages or by any other form” that damage someone's honour: 2 to 5 years, 72 00:05:50.200 --> 00:05:57.420 prisión mayor if the victim is a minor or a relationship of authority exists. 73 00:05:57.420 --> 00:06:04.641 That open-ended wording reaches montages made with AI, even though the Code does 74 00:06:04.641 --> 00:06:05.995 not name them. 75 00:06:06.315 --> 00:06:13.041 Disclosing a minor's image or personal data in a way that stigmatizes them or 76 00:06:13.041 --> 00:06:16.361 harms their development: 2 to 5 years. 77 00:06:16.361 --> 00:06:23.087 Opening an account in the name of a teacher or a classmate is identity theft. 78 00:06:23.087 --> 00:06:29.202 On digital tools, no one-to-one dealings with students: only group and 79 00:06:29.202 --> 00:06:31.037 institutional spaces. 80 00:06:31.357 --> 00:06:34.117 Section 6 · Adolescents and the law The most misunderstood point about the new Code lies outside it. 81 00:06:34.437 --> 00:06:40.790 A child under 13 is NEVER criminally responsible: they cannot be detained, 82 00:06:40.790 --> 00:06:45.168 deprived of liberty or sanctioned by any authority. 83 00:06:45.168 --> 00:06:52.036 From their 13th birthday until the day they turn 18, they answer to the juvenile 84 00:06:52.036 --> 00:06:58.818 criminal justice system, whose purpose is “education, rehabilitation and social 85 00:06:58.818 --> 00:07:04.398 reintegration”, with deprivation of liberty only as an exception. 86 00:07:04.718 --> 00:07:11.769 The prison terms in the Code — the “20 years”, the “30 years” — are for adults. 87 00:07:11.769 --> 00:07:18.432 The school's disciplinary measure and the juvenile criminal process run on 88 00:07:18.432 --> 00:07:25.274 parallel tracks: the school sanction, with due process and without corporal, 89 00:07:25.274 --> 00:07:32.325 financial or collective punishment, does not replace referral to the Fiscalía de 90 00:07:32.325 --> 00:07:34.216 Niñez y Adolescencia. 91 00:07:34.536 --> 00:07:36.713 Section 7 · Five practices that protect you Observe · Document · Report · 92 00:07:36.713 --> 00:07:37.787 Support · Look after the information 93 00:07:38.107 --> 00:07:38.615 Observe. 94 00:07:38.615 --> 00:07:42.618 The law activates your duty from suspicion, not from certainty. 95 00:07:42.618 --> 00:07:47.384 Noticing a change of mood, a repeated absence or an unexplained mark is the 96 00:07:47.384 --> 00:07:50.498 first protection for your students — and for you. 97 00:07:50.818 --> 00:07:51.445 Document. 98 00:07:51.445 --> 00:07:56.600 Write down what you saw and when, in your own words, without interpreting. 99 00:07:56.600 --> 00:08:00.849 A dated record turns your diligence into a demonstrable fact. 100 00:08:01.169 --> 00:08:01.584 Report. 101 00:08:01.584 --> 00:08:06.093 Take the record to the school leadership and to Guidance and Psychology, and 102 00:08:06.093 --> 00:08:09.179 follow the route through to the competent authority. 103 00:08:09.179 --> 00:08:12.205 Reporting protects you; staying silent exposes you. 104 00:08:12.525 --> 00:08:13.100 Support. 105 00:08:13.100 --> 00:08:18.703 The Code declares criminal law a “last resort” and instructs THE STATE to give 106 00:08:18.703 --> 00:08:24.449 priority to prevention and to less damaging conflict resolution, in keeping with 107 00:08:24.449 --> 00:08:25.886 restorative justice. 108 00:08:25.886 --> 00:08:31.417 Listening without judging, mediating and following up is consistent with that 109 00:08:31.417 --> 00:08:36.517 principle — and it is what the Normas de Convivencia ask of the school. 110 00:08:36.837 --> 00:08:38.578 Look after the information. 111 00:08:38.578 --> 00:08:42.448 The case is discussed only with those who need to act on it. 112 00:08:42.448 --> 00:08:46.962 Exposing a student's identity or image can be a criminal offence; your 113 00:08:46.962 --> 00:08:49.348 discretion is part of the protection. 114 00:08:49.668 --> 00:08:52.248 Section 8 · Myths worth letting go Three staff-room sentences that do not survive a reading of the text. 115 00:08:52.568 --> 00:08:57.959 “With this Code I can no longer correct a student or set discipline. ” False. 116 00:08:57.959 --> 00:09:03.279 Correcting, reprimanding, holding a phone until the end of the school day or 117 00:09:03.279 --> 00:09:08.740 applying educational measures is what the Normas de Convivencia REQUIRE (Arts. 118 00:09:08.740 --> 00:09:09.790 18, 21 and 24). 119 00:09:09.790 --> 00:09:15.670 What is prohibited is something else: violence, humiliation and degrading treatment. 120 00:09:15.990 --> 00:09:20.521 “If I report and I am wrong, I will be accused of making a false report. 121 00:09:20.521 --> 00:09:25.555 ” A false report requires VOLUNTARILY presenting an authority with an accusation 122 00:09:25.555 --> 00:09:30.652 KNOWN TO BE FALSE; reporting a suspicion that is later not confirmed is not that. 123 00:09:30.652 --> 00:09:35.309 Whoever reports in good faith is exempt from criminal and civil liability. 124 00:09:35.629 --> 00:09:39.586 “Insulting a teacher is contempt of a public official. 125 00:09:39.586 --> 00:09:44.715 ” Not any more: Ley 44-26 limited that offence to the judicial sphere. 126 00:09:44.715 --> 00:09:49.845 Your honour is still protected through insult, defamation and threats. 127 00:09:50.165 --> 00:09:53.968 Commentary, not the letter of the law · Three views on this page Signed opinions 128 00:09:53.968 --> 00:09:55.109 from the editorial team. 129 00:09:55.109 --> 00:09:56.963 They are not law, and not legal advice. 130 00:09:57.283 --> 00:10:05.127 Marcus Okonkwo-Brandt, the guardian: “The exemption for whoever reports in good 131 00:10:05.127 --> 00:10:10.892 faith is the part almost nobody reads aloud. 132 00:10:10.892 --> 00:10:17.967 Fear of being wrong has silenced too many good adults. 133 00:10:17.967 --> 00:10:25.812 The law protects the one who speaks, not the one who stays quiet. ” 134 00:10:26.132 --> 00:10:34.298 Zara Chen-Rodriguez, the innovator: “In digital, nothing one-to-one with 135 00:10:34.298 --> 00:10:42.463 students — everything in groups, everything institutional. 136 00:10:42.463 --> 00:10:50.629 Every conversation about montages, fake accounts or photos shared without 137 00:10:50.629 --> 00:10:57.206 permission is a digital-citizenship lesson. ” 138 00:10:57.526 --> 00:11:06.217 Carlos Miranda Levy, the curator: “The law formalized what good practice was 139 00:11:06.217 --> 00:11:14.365 already doing: observe, record, report, support. 140 00:11:14.365 --> 00:11:19.457 Change it, but change it well. 141 00:11:19.457 --> 00:11:28.149 A teacher who knows the framework works with more freedom, not less. ” 142 00:11:28.469 --> 00:11:35.960 All of this, article by article, with every citation linked to the official 143 00:11:35.960 --> 00:11:37.788 text: ailearning. 144 00:11:37.788 --> 00:11:45.280 global/penal/rd/en/educadores/ This material is guidance; it does not replace 145 00:11:45.280 --> 00:11:47.860 the law or legal advice.