Ecuadorian youth unite against neoliberal models and state violence

Students are demanding a just future for all

This post is part of Global Voices’ November 2026 Spotlight series, “Justice as infrastructure.” In this Spotlight, Global Voices is partnering with The Hague Institute for Innovation of Law (HiiL) to highlight the ways justice functions as critical infrastructure for any society. You can support this coverage by donating here.

In Quito, in defiance of the Jóvenes en Acción (Youth in Action) strategy with which Daniel Noboa’s government has attempted to boost employment for young people, thousands of students have been staging marches and sit-ins in streets and squares, demanding medicines, security, and a budget for education.

Their protests show a clear departure from the traditional approach to collective mobilization in Ecuador. Previously, these types of events have been led by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE); trade union groups such as the Ecuador Confederation of Free Trade Union Organizations (CEOSL), the United Workers’ Front (FUT), and the National Union of Educators (UNE); as well as feminist, anti-mining, and environmentalist movements.

However, on the afternoon of Saturday, October 10, 2026, the Ecuadorian capital witnessed a massive mobilization led by high school and university students, who gathered outside the Central University to march to Quito’s Historic Center. The call was made by the Autonomous Resistance Front (FARO), which comprises several youth collectives:

Lo que pasa en Quito es impresionante:

Quienes encabezaban la marcha anunciaron su finalización y llamaron a dispersarse. Sin embargo, la multitud continúa avanzando por las calles de Quito, desafiando el asedio policial y haciendo resonar consignas contra el Gobierno de Daniel Noboa.
@teleSURtv

— Elena Rodríguez Yánez (@ElenaDeQuito) October 10, 2026

What is happening in Quito is striking:
Those leading the march announced its conclusion and called for the crowd to disperse. Nevertheless, the throng continues to move through the streets of Quito, defying a police blockade and chanting slogans against the government of Daniel Noboa.

With their presence in the streets, the young people of Quito denounced the deterioration of public services, including the lack of medical supplies and medicines in hospitals, cuts to the public education budget, low youth employment, a persistent increase in insecurity, and forced disappearances at the hands of state agents. Their slogans also spoke out against the genocide in Palestine and the United States’ interventionism in Latin America.

Structural failures driving youth mobilization

According to figures from the National Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC), 40 percent of unemployed people in Ecuador are between 15 and 24 years old. Labor precariousness, a dearth of opportunities, and the high cost of living are just some of the factors affecting the country’s youth.

Meanwhile, on October 30, the Noboa administration launched its third edition of “Youth in Action,” an initiative aimed at the 18-29 demographic, who are promised temporary, two-month jobs with a salary of USD 400 per month. The measure has faced harsh criticism from various academics and civic sector representatives, who maintain that the absence of a comprehensive, long-term vision proves its inefficiency in tackling youth unemployment.

In November 2025, Ecuador’s National Assembly approved the country’s 2026 budget proposal, which hit public universities, polytechnic schools, co-financed institutions, and postgraduate programs with an allocated budget reduction of approximately USD 99 million. The decrease was reflected in the absence of student scholarships, non-existent investment in research, and a reduction in available slots to access free public higher education, which is established as a fundamental right in Article 26 of Ecuador’s Constitution.

Slogans as the language of youth resistance

During the peaceful youth march, participants chanted slogans like “Out Noboa, out,” “If the people have no peace, the government won’t either,” and “Noboa, fascist,” expressing indignation against a government they believe has failed to solve social problems that affect not only young people, but the majority of the population.

Direct rejection of deficient public administration, coupled with excessive state violence against citizens, motivated the students to protest. Many videos posted on social media captured police aggression against peaceful demonstrators, as well as physical assaults on journalists as they reported on the protests.

teleSUR reporter Elena Rodríguez Yánez shared her experience on X:

Estoy harta de tener que narrar, una y otra vez, las agresiones policiales contra la prensa. Hoy, mientras intentaba documentar la violencia con la que los agentes golpeaban a jóvenes manifestantes, recibí por la espalda un toletazo en la cabeza. Me di la vuelta, mostré mi micrófono de teleSUR para identificarme como periodista y la respuesta fue otro toletazo que terminó partiéndolo.

Los periodistas no queremos ser noticia. Yo no quiero ser protagonista de nada. Estoy en las calles para contar lo que ocurre, para documentar aquello que el poder muchas veces preferiría que nadie viera.

Y si creen que a punta de golpes van a conseguir que deje de registrar la brutalidad policial, que aparte mi micrófono o que me repliegue varias cuadras para ejercer el periodismo desde donde no incomode, se equivocan.

No somos los periodistas quienes debemos alejarnos de los hechos. Son los policías quienes deben dejar de agredir. El derecho a informar no se negocia a punta de tolete.

— Elena Rodríguez Yánez (@ElenaDeQuito) October 11, 2026

I am fed up with having to recount, time and again, police assaults against the press. Today, while attempting to document the violence with which officers were beating young protesters, I was struck on the back of the head with a baton. I turned around and held up my teleSUR microphone to identify myself as a journalist; the response was another blow from a baton, which ended up shattering it.

We journalists do not want to be the news. I have no desire to be the protagonist of anything. I am out on the streets to report on what is happening — to document things that those in power would often prefer no one to see.

And if they think that by using force — by raining down blows — they can make me stop recording police brutality, force me to put away my microphone, or push me back several blocks so that I might practice journalism from a place where I won’t cause any ‘inconvenience,’ they are sorely mistaken.

It is not the journalists who should step away from the events; it is the police who must stop the assaults. The right to report cannot be negotiated at the end of a baton.

Hatari Ulcuango, President of the Federation of Students of the Catholic University of Ecuador, warned in one of his speeches that these mobilizations were “just the beginning.”

On October 10, as young people occupied the streets with their marches and sit-ins, they also used art to make their voices heard, singing songs, playing musical instruments, wearing masks, and dressing up in costumes. In doing so, they demonstrated that together, they can be very strong and that violence is not needed to speak one’s mind.

The government responded by sending the authorities to quell the protests and repress the demonstrators. Denunciations of the outcomes of state violence — dozens of students suffocated, injured, and detained — quickly spread across social media. These young people promised, however, that as long as they go unheard and continue to be treated with the blunt coercion of the state, they will return to the streets and not falter.

The leading role of youth in the streets of Ecuador, pitted against the state’s capacity for violent repression, evidence not only the crisis of the social state and the consolidation of an exclusionary state, but also the historical role of young people as agents of political change.

The glass generation — the one society has tried to shield — is experiencing the contradictions of an economic and political system that excludes them, making their future increasingly uncertain, and they are doing something about it.

Written by Gina Yauri