Human Trafficking in [Guatemala] [other countries]Street Children in [Guatemala Child Prostitution in [Guatemala] [other countries] |
Prevalence, Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children The Republic of
Guatemala [map], located in Central America, is bounded by Mexico (N &
W), by Belize and the Caribbean Sea (E), by Honduras and El Salvador (SE),
and by the Pacific Ocean (SW). The capital
and largest city is |
|
CAUTION: The following links and
accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation
in UNICEF - The
Big Picture Quick Search for Missing Children
- Select Gender, Country ( U.S.
Dept of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Street children tend to be especially vulnerable to sexual
exploitation and other forms of violence, constituting a serious problem in Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 CHILDREN - Credible estimates put the
number of street children at five thousand nationwide, approximately three
thousand of them in The government maintained one
shelter each for girls and boys in Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 2001 [7] The Committee notes with interest
the Education Program for Working Children and Adolescents (PENNAT) to assist children who work in markets, parks and
the streets in both urban and rural areas. [30] The Committee is deeply
disturbed by information that violence against children is increasing. In
particular, it notes with great concern that many children fear for their
lives because they are continually threatened and are victims of violence,
notably when they are living and/or working in the street but also when they
are at home. Of particular concern to the Committee is the alleged
involvement of the State Civil Police in some of the alleged cases of
violence and the lack of proper investigation of these cases by Guatemalan
authorities. [54] The Committee expresses its
concern at the significant number of children living in the streets and notes
that assistance to these children is provided mainly by non-governmental
organizations. In light of article 6 of the Convention, serious concern is
expressed at allegations of rape, ill-treatment and torture, including murder
for the purpose of "social cleansing", of children living in the
streets. Fiction also trivializes fact.
There is no romance in the life of street children, only pain and
hopelessness, hunger and fear, disease and death. Real street children do not
sport beguiling smiles. They are prone to misbehave. They often stink. All
could use a bath. But under the grime, the air of defiance
or the crushing indifference their feverish eyes convey, there is a child,
scared, vulnerable, far too young to taste life’s bitter medicine, yet
incurably old before his time. In the ghostly twilight world of
street children, there are no magic lamps to rub, no benevolent, turbaned
genies, no flying carpets, no protective amulets, no healing philters; only
evil spirits lurking, stalking easy prey. Unlike Aladdin, street children do
not amass fame and fortune, and no fairy prince or princess will marry them
in the end. Most never leave the streets. Many don’t reach adulthood.
Disease, hunger, drugs and bullets often cut their lives short. Human
Rights Watch - Street Children In Bulgaria, Guatemala, India, and Kenya, Human Rights Watch has reported that
police violence against street children is pervasive, and impunity is the
norm. The failure of law enforcement bodies to promptly and effectively
investigate and prosecute cases of abuse against street children allows the
violence to continue. Establishing police accountability is further hampered
by the fact that street children often have no recourse but to complain
directly to police about police abuses. The threat of police reprisals
against them serves as a serious deterrent to any child coming forward to
testify or make a complaint against an officer. Her day starts at 5:30 a.m.
Sandy-haired, blue-eyed, slim, and casually dressed, 32-year-old Hanley
Denning looks like any other American tourist or foreign student in the
colonial city of Antigua, Guatemala, as she heads for the bus. With typical
Latin American imprecision, it arrives sometime around 6:15 or 6:30; Denning
boards, along with locals, for the ride to the country's capital and major
population center, Guatemala City. An hour and a half later she steps
off on the city's northwest side and walks through an area of
graffiti-covered, sewerless houses. Stepping gingerly
over the leavings of mangy dogs and the garbage spill that the children have
scavenged from the dump to sort, clean, and sell, she passes a string of
children hauling more home. After three or four
blocks, the flies buzz thicker, vultures fly overhead, and the stench grows
noxious. Seemingly light-years away from the quaint streets of Antigua is the Guatemala City dump, where adults and children as
young as four earn their livelihood by scavenging. Violence against Guatemalan women
gets less media attention than the notorious crimes
against women in the sprawling metropolis of Ciudad Juarez, on Mexico’s
border with the United States (3). Nevertheless they are beaten, tortured,
mutilated, raped and killed: 2,200 have been murdered since 2001,299 in the
first six months of this year (4). The rising rate of violent death affects
men too. Battles between armed street gangs (maras)
are on the rise, as is the killing of street children by “social cleansing”
groups who are in the pay of people anxious to
protect their property. Casa
Alianza Legal Advisor Murdered BACKGROUND - Formed in 1990 after the brutal
murder of thirteen-year old Nahamán Carmona López by the National
Police, Casa Alianza’s Legal Program seeks to
defend and promote the rights of children, youth and young mothers. Perez
Gallardo has served as an Advisor to the Legal Program for the past six
years. The fifty-six year old lawyer was advising Casa Alianza
on several pending cases involving irregular adoptions, murders, sexual
exploitation, trafficking and other human rights violations against children. Bruce Harris - Richard
Swift meets an outspoken advocate for Guatemala’s street kids They know we are not by ourselves.
That’s why we have survived. It may seem
naive to think your little letter will have any effect as you sit there in
your garden in FEBRUARY 5TH 2003 - The body of an indigenous
eleven-year-old homeless boy, Oscar, was found hidden in a sack in Many children in Guatemala have
been orphaned by civil war and violence, abandoned by parents too poor to
cope or are runaways from physical or sexual abuse within the family unit.
Once on the streets, children soon fall prey to violence, exploitation and
disease. Rejected by society, these
children are regarded as 'disposable' and become victims of harassment and
violent abuse. Some are shot. Many of
these abandoned children seek to numb the pain and loneliness of life on the
streets by turning to solvent abuse.
In order to survive they are often faced with a choice of either starvation, joining a violent gang, or stealing or
selling their bodies. Rescuing Second-Generation Street Children in Guatemala There are more than 5,000 youth
between the ages of 10 and 23 living in the streets of Street Children in Latin America FACTFILE - Herbert Paiz, director of El Castillo, Toybox's partner charity in Guatemala, has observed that street children in Guatemala City have a life expectancy of around four years. It is very difficult to tell but it is thought that there are 1000 to 1500 street children in Guatemala City. Medecins Sans Frontieres -
Promoting Generics And Helping Street Children Since 1999, MSF
has run a project in Guatemala City that provides free health care and
psychological counseling to more than 700 street children and young adults,
some of whom have been living in the streets for a decade or more. There are
high suicide and substance abuse rates among the street kids. Sexually
Transmitted Diseases In Guatemala City Street Children Drug consumption, sexual
promiscuity, extreme poverty, and low educational level place street children
at high risk of sexually transmitted diseases. A prospective study was
conducted of 143 street children attending a sexually transmitted disease
clinic in Street Children
Surprisingly Healthy Researchers have found that
although the lives of these children can be fraught with danger, they adapt
physically to survive. Inter
American Court Awards to Families of Murdered Guatemalan Street Children The Inter American Court on Human
Rights (“the Court”) today ordered the State of Guatemala to pay a total of
more than half a million dollars to the families of five street children who
were brutally tortured and murdered by two National Policemen in June 1990. Police Violence Against
Street Children They hit with their rifles, or
with sticks, on our backs and stomachs.
And sometimes they just punch us in the stomach with their hands. They also take our paint thinner and pour
it over our heads. They’ve done that
to me five times. It’s awful, it hurts
really bad. It gets in your eyes and
burns. Guatemalan
Street Kids Face Hardships, Death Squads There are certain groups in
society, including security forces, who feel that by torturing, kidnapping
and murdering them, they'll teach the others a lesson to leave the street One of the biggest problems for
children living on the streets in Guatemala is the police abuse that they
suffer. Many of the children living on the streets greatly fear the police
and fear for their lives. Police abuse in Guatemala is one of the big problems that street children face, but it is getting less over time. Much of the police abuse is not done by the actual Guatemalan police. There are many private police officers in Guatemala who no longer work for the government, but work privately who commonly abuse street children. Guatemala:
Fear For Safety of Members Of Casa Alianza &
Their Street Children The offices of Casa Alianza, an organization that helps street children, were
broken into on 7 March, and files containing confidential information on
children who have allegedly been ill treated by police were ransacked.
Amnesty International is concerned for the safety of both Casa Alianza employees and the children it supports. The first case was 13 year old Nahaman Carmona Lopez, a frail
street boy who was kicked to death in the middle of Continued
Abuse of Street Children With the changes of government in In the Robbed of Humanity: Lives of Guatemalan Street Children REVIEWS AND COMMENTS - Tierney describes, discusses and tries to explain the horrors faced by Guatemalan street children. Deftly guiding the reader through a clear, informative analysis of the conditions that cause so many kids to suffer, Tierney paints a picture of a government that not only neglects, but also terrorizes, the citizens it should protect. All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial,
nonprofit, and educational use |
Human Trafficking in [Guatemala] [other countries]Street Children in [Guatemala Child Prostitution in [Guatemala] [other countries]