Last June, President José Antonio Kast announced the Parental Responsibility bill, an initiative that seeks to "strengthen" the role of guardians in the education, guidance, and supervision of children and adolescents. It also aims to enforce responsibility when there is a failure to fulfill this role. Currently, the bill is in the Family Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, which this Monday received representatives from various institutions and organizations, who presented their concerns about the initiative. Estíbaliz Pereira, a lawyer from the organization Community and Justice, highlighted that although the purpose of the bill is "legitimate and necessary," her team detected that it "contains a series of errors regarding the means chosen to achieve this goal." One of the main "problems" raised by the professional relates to the fact that this bill "judicializes conflicts inherent to the family. There are various ways of raising children, and parents have to make different decisions in parenting (...) what can happen? That often what I believe is wrong for a parent to do, another parent might see as correct, and these are completely legitimate differences." Additionally, she pointed out that the initiative "establishes a quite broad premise (...) that not only considers cases where the minor commits an illicit activity against third parties, which we often see on the streets, but also against themselves." In that scenario, the question was raised: "how will we intervene in cases of substance control problems or drug abuse? The focus should not be an infringing procedure against the parents." She also added that "this bill uses extremely broad legal concepts, such as lack of diligence or harmful habits (...) We need precision because (the bill) aims to establish sanctions." Based on the above, Pereira proposed that "this bill be rejected in general because it has these problems that do not comprehensively resolve the issue." JONNATHAN OYARZUN/ATON CHILE Another speaker was José Luis Trevia, legislative advisor at the Idea País study center, who expressed concern about the "duty of guidance and orientation assigned to the directors of residences in the protection system." He also raised objections to the "lack of allocated resources and the collapse of family courts. We identified that one of the main weaknesses of this bill is that it does not include additional resources for the institutions responsible for practical implementation." Along the same lines, he identified a gap regarding how mental health care required by the Family Court would be financed. He also questioned the "sanctions." "The bill does not mention any evidence linking that patrimonial benefit to a corrective process," he said. The spokesperson of the organization Con Mis Hijos No Te Metas, Ingrid Bohn, also spoke, sharing "the primary goal that parents be responsible, present, and committed to their children," but she stated that her organization disagrees with "the mechanism this bill proposes to achieve the goal of upbringing and guidance." "One thing is strengthening families, and quite another is turning the State into a supervisor and judge of parenting within the home," she said. She also argued that "we cannot legislate based on the assumption that all parents violate their children. Only a few do, and those are the ones we should focus on." Bohn also questioned the "ambiguity" of the concepts used in the bill. "The initiative uses concepts like lack of diligence, psychological abuse, harmful habits, or serious violation, without always providing sufficient clear boundaries. And the more serious the consequences a norm can produce on the family, the greater the certainty should be about what the law prohibits or sanctions." Photo: Reference/Aton Chile JONNATHAN OYARZUN/ATON CHILE The general manager of the San Carlos de Maipo Foundation, Rafael Rodríguez, also spoke at the committee. While he highlighted aspects of the bill, he expressed concern about "how to identify parents who are truly negligent or who are doing things to make their children commit crimes." "Perhaps that is the job, and unfortunately, this bill does not address that," he said. He added: "The work here is to identify those caregivers or adults who are instrumentalizing children, but that line, I believe, is understood in the what, but confused in the how." Rodríguez also stated that "family courts are currently overwhelmed." "If this law is applied, it will increase the overload of family courts." Additionally, he pointed out that "there is a problem with the budget." "The costs of family courts should be increased to manage this, and the costs should be increased to handle the enormous amount of supply needed to meet the demand," he said.