Jalisco officials are investigating the case of a seven-year-old boy who died on Saturday, March 9 following an allegedly violent bullying incident at school.
The victim, whose name has not been released, died of a lung infection after ingesting fecal matter when his head was plunged into a toilet at his primary school in the municipality of Union de San Antonio in northeast Jalisco.
The Jalisco Human Rights Commission (CEDHJ) said on Tuesday that it is investigating hospital and school officials for possible negligence in the death of the boy, after his father Jonathan Ortiz filed a complaint.Ortiz told the commission that an older boy had forcibly submerged his son’s head in a toilet at the Valentin Gomez Farias primary school in February. Ortiz said he took his son to a state-run hospital, but doctors there failed to detect the infection and told him it was a stomach ailment.
When the boy continued to feel unwell, Ortiz took him to a medical center in Lagos de Moreno where he was diagnosed with a respiratory infection. He was then sent to a Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) hospital in Guadalajara but suffered three cardiac arrests en route and died before reaching the hospital.
The victim’s parents blamed the school for ignoring what they believe to have been a case of prolonged bullying. The alleged perpetrator is too young to face criminal charges but could be held accountable in Mexico’s juvenile justice system.
Bullying is a serious and extremely common problem in Jalisco. Of 1,091 children surveyed in 20 schools across the Guadalajara metropolitan zone, 75 percent said they had experienced some form of bullying, according to public health specialist Isabel Valadez.