Mecanismos para la reintegración social humana de NNA en actividades mineras en el municipio de Istmina, Chocó

Abstract

This research explores how children and adolescents become involved in miningrelated activities in Istmina, Chocó, by adopting a socio-legal, human-rights lens that treats coordination with the Diocese of San Juan as the central pathway for protection and social reintegration, while keeping the design within the limits of nondirect intervention. To move from normative claims to an ordered empirical basis, three instruments were administered to households, diocesan personnel, and municipal offices, allowing the study to delineate conditions of participation, to examine the requirements for a transition toward non-mining environments, to map actors with decision-making or mediating capacity, and to derive guidelines for institutional articulation. The evidence points to participation clustered in adolescence and organized mainly around panning practices, with consequences that appear in the school trajectory through absences and performance disruptions, while exposure to occupational hazards persists in settings where the use of personal protective equipment is scarcely reported. At the household level, economic constraints and everyday logistical frictions shape educational continuity, whereas municipal structures report gaps that take administrative form through the lack of specific records, protocols, and earmarked budgets, alongside coordination that remains intermittent. Within this configuration, the Diocese stands out through territorial access and channels of trust, even as the absence of written procedures and dedicated resources limits the conversion of pastoral contact into sustained pathways. The study therefore argues that effective coordination depends on technical roundtables, referral and follow-up routes, community-based care spaces, and alignment with public provision so that household income and sustained schooling can function as the conditions through which protection and reintegration become practicable.