Over the last ten years, Ecuador experienced a 784% increase in homicides, becoming one of the six most violent countries in the world. This scenario prompted journalist Jéssica Zambrano, co-founder of Indómita Media, to formulate a central hypothesis: the demographic group with the highest growth in violent deaths is the exact same one abandoning the educational system. High school ceased to be a promise of progress, affected by state underfunding and a narrative of war.
To measure the scale of this crisis, the researcher secured one of the microgrants from the Regional Training Program in AI and Data organized by Media Party and the World Bank. Following the incubation phase using artificial intelligence tools and the Data360 platform, the team crossed international development indicators with local crime data, consolidating the investigation: “The generation leaving school is also dying in Ecuador: five facts to measure its scale”.
Main findings
The following findings correspond to the investigation exposing how structural violence directly impacts the country’s youth. By crossing indicators from the Data360 platform with local territorial records, the work dismantles the official rhetoric focused solely on security measures:
- The growth of youth violence: The data reveals a critical scenario at both regional and local levels. While Ecuador’s homicide rate records a historic increase compared to other countries in the region, segmented analysis demonstrates that adolescents aged 13 to 17 constitute the age group whose violent deaths show the highest growth rate year over year. In 2021, 26 victims were recorded in this age range, but by 2024 the figure rose to 255, and in 2025 it climbed to 386.
- The exodus from classrooms: Violence correlates directly with abandonment of the educational system. While homicides of minors increase, school enrollments drop substantially. Since 2015, 99,606 Ecuadorian children have stopped studying. A comparative analysis with eight countries in the region reveals that only Cuba (-16.8%) and Ecuador (-5.3%) lost high school students in absolute terms, while the rest of Latin American countries saw growth.
- State disinvestment and ineffective states of emergency: The decline in education coincides with a historic retreat by the State. The data shows a drop in public spending on total education compared to other regional neighbors. In contrast, the country lives under a permanent state of emergency: as of June 23, 2026, 96.2% of President Daniel Noboa’s term has passed under this measure. The numbers prove that this has not reversed the criminal trend but has instead criminalized neighborhoods, pushing out-of-school youth into organized crime networks that offer them a sense of “protection” and economic income.
Methodology and technical innovation
Journalist Jéssica Zambrano developed this project by applying the key takeaways from the Regional AI and Data Training Program, which focused on translating complex development indicators into high-impact journalistic coverage. The central technical challenge consisted of crossing the socio-economic scenario with local violence. Using the World Bank’s Data360 platform as a global anchor to compare public spending and the drop in student enrollment across the region, she managed to unify these metrics with open data from the Ministry of the Interior and INEC.
In line with the program’s selection criteria, the methodology integrated the strategic use of artificial intelligence for processing, analyzing, or visualizing the story. This served as the quantitative foundation to analyze crime trends and state of emergency decrees, providing the backing needed to contrast hard data with testimonies gathered from sociologists, founders, and mediators on the ground.
Presentation at Media Party Buenos Aires 2026
The work—including the process of crossing data on poverty and crime, the AI methodology, and the utilization of the Data360 API—will be presented on the main stage of Media Party Buenos Aires this October 2026.
Explore the full official investigation here: The generation leaving school is also dying in Ecuador: five facts to measure its scale
