Prevalence,
Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the first decade of the 21st
Century gvnet.com/streetchildren/Guatemala.htm
|
|||||||||||
|
CAUTION: The following links
and accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the
situation in Guatemala. Some of these
links may lead to websites that present allegations that are unsubstantiated
or even false. No attempt has been made to validate their authenticity
or to verify their content. HOW TO USE THIS WEBPAGE Students If you are looking for
material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on this
page and others to see which aspect(s) of street life are of particular
interest to you. You might be
interested in exploring how children got there, how they survive, and how
some manage to leave the street.
Perhaps your paper could focus on how some street children abuse the
public and how they are abused by the public … and how they abuse each
other. Would you like to write about
market children? homeless children? Sexual and labor exploitation? begging? violence? addiction? hunger? neglect? etc. There is a lot to the subject of Street
Children. Scan other countries as well
as this one. Draw comparisons between
activity in adjacent countries and/or regions. Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper resources
that are available on-line. Teachers Check out some of
the Resources
for Teachers attached to this website. ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** Street Children
Surprisingly Healthy BBC News, 13 April,
2002 news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1920570.stm [accessed 19 May
2011] Researchers have
found that although the lives of these children can be fraught with danger,
they adapt physically to survive. 'RESILIENT' - "Their
health as measured by their BMIs doesn't prove that they live a fine life -
it is fraught with great danger, including murder and sexual exploitation,
especially for the girls - but it does confound our expectations. These kids are resilient and self-reliant
and adapt physically to the difficult conditions of homelessness. Although middle-class urban kids certainly
fare better, homeless urban children seem to be doing better health-wise than
they would if they lived in intact families in poor agricultural
communities." Police Violence
Against Street Children Human Rights Watch:
Easy Targets - Violence Against Children Worldwide, September 2001 www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/2001/children/5.htm [accessed 19 May
2011] 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. Thousands of
children living in Guatemala’s streets have faced routine beatings, thefts
and sexual assaults at the hands of the National Police and private security
guards. During a 1996 Human Rights Watch investigation, nearly every child we
spoke with told us of habitual assaults and thefts by the police. These
assaults occurred on busy city streets in broad daylight, on quiet streets in
the middle of the night, in alleys and deserted areas, and in police
stations. Often, they were witnessed by passersby or other police officers. A youth who spent
nine years on the street told us: The
police bother us every single day. They hit us and steal our money, our
shoes, our jackets. If you don’t give them what they
want, they’ll beat you up or arrest you . . . .We
can’t say anything, or they’ll hit us harder. Girls on the street
are additionally vulnerable to sexual attacks. Susana F., a sixteen-year-old,
reported that she was raped by two police officers while a third kept watch.
The officers threatened to put her in prison for having marijuana if she made
any noise. “I’m sure this has happened
to many other girls. But usually they won’t say anything about it. . . .Ugly
things happen on the street.” Guatemalan street
children have also been killed in extrajudicial executions. In September
1996, sixteen-year-old Ronald Raúl Ramos was shot
and killed by a drunken Treasury Police officer. More than ten other street
children in Guatemala were murdered that year under suspicious circumstances,
yet by April of the following year, all of the perpetrators were still at
large. ***
ARCHIVES *** The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor U.S. Dept of Labor
Bureau of International Labor Affairs, 2005 www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/guatemala.htm [accessed 8 February
2011] 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 Guatemala. Recent primary
school attendance statistics are not available for Guatemala. As of
2000, 55.8 percent of children who started primary school were likely to
reach grade 5. Working children tend
to complete only 1.8 years of schooling, roughly half the average years
completed by non-working children. Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices U.S. Dept of State
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, March 8, 2006 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61729.htm [accessed 9 February
2020] CHILDREN
-
Credible estimates put the number of street children at five thousand
nationwide, approximately three thousand of them in Guatemala City. Most
street children ran away from home after being abused. Casa Alianza reported that increased gang recruitment
decreased the number of street children in the capital, because after joining
a gang, street children often lived with fellow gang members and no longer
slept on the streets. Casa Alianza reported that
from January until mid-November, 334 children were killed in Guatemala City,
compared with 173 killed during 2004. Criminals often recruited street
children for purposes of stealing, transporting contraband, prostitution, and
illegal drug activities. Approximately 10 thousand children were members of
street gangs. NGOs dealing with gangs and other youth reported concerns about
abusive treatment, including physical assaults, by police of street youth
upon apprehension or in custody. The government
maintained one shelter each for girls and boys in Guatemala City, providing
housing for the homeless. The government devoted insufficient funds to these
two youth centers, and governmental authorities often preferred to send
juveniles to youth shelters operated by Casa Alianza
and other NGOs. The government provided no funding assistance for shelter
costs to these NGOs. Juvenile offenders were incarcerated at separate youth
detention facilities. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 8 June 2001 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/guatemala2001.html [accessed 8 February
2011] [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. For
many children in Guatemala, lessons have to be learned on the street Jessica Shepherd,
The Guardian, 7 March 2011 www.theguardian.com/education/2011/mar/08/global-campaign-for-education-guatemala [accessed 9 Aug 2013] In Guatemala, up to
1.5 million children are missing school to try to scrape a living on the
streets. What can be done to get them back into classrooms? At La Terminal, the
bus station in Guatemala City where José plies his trade, shootings, thefts
and gang violence are commonplace. Even the fried chicken joint now employs
an armed security guard. José has had his daily earnings of about 75 Quetzales – £6 – stolen more than once. In Guatemala, there
are 52 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to one murder per 100,000 in
the UK and five per 100,000 in the US. Many predict this to increase this
year, as tensions rise with the election of a new Guatemalan president in the
autumn. Guatemalans say
more people are dying now than during the country's bitter 36-year civil war,
which ended in 1996. As José walks to
the next bus, half a dozen vehicles sound their horns. He takes a side-step
to avoid a man who is unstable on his feet, and holds out gold-coloured bracelets in his palm to passers-by. It's nearly
impossible to judge how many children in Guatemala are missing out on a
formal education to work the streets as José does. Guatemala: One
child abandoned every four days Inspire magazine www.inspiremagazine.org.uk/news.aspx?action=view&id=3457 [accessed 19 May
2011] A recently published
report by the Joint Council on International Children’s Services has revealed
that one child is abandoned in Guatemala City every four days – and over
three quarters of them are newborn babies.
Families and parents in Guatemala abandon children because they feel
they have no other option. Poverty and
large family sizes mean the children simply can’t be cared for. Other children are abandoned because they
are physically disabled or have learning difficulties. Without social services to help them,
these children and babies are struggling to survive on the streets. The more
fortunate ones are cared for by older children or street families. The less fortunate ones will die. Twenty
abandoned children were found dead in the city last year. Morales Case
Focused International Attention on Plight, Rights of Street Children News office:
University Relations, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, 9/10/2008 www.newswise.com/articles/view/544203/ [accessed 19 May
2011] As one might
expect, these children suffer profoundly and face enormous economic,
political and social challenges. In addition to economic poverty, which often
leads to malnutrition and even starvation, these children are exploited and
victimized by their own governments, usually by a police force. It has been
extremely difficult for human rights and development organizations – not to
mention victims and their families – to work within a given country’s legal
system to seek protection for these children. In the past decade or more,
advocates have relied on international human-rights law and treaties to try
to force governments to protect street children and provide for their
welfare. One such treaty is
the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights, which the Republic of
Guatemala ratified. In 1999, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found
Guatemala in violation of several provisions of the treaty due to the 1990
abduction, detention and murder of five street children, one of whom was Villagran Morales, by Guatemalan police. Two years later,
the court ordered the Guatemalan government to pay a total of $508,865 to the
surviving relatives of the murdered children. Villagran
Morales v. Guatemala was the first case in the history of the Inter-American
Court in which the victims of human rights violations were children. Fear and loathing
in gangland Guatemala The Guardian, July
17, 2008 www.guardian.co.uk/journalismcompetition/gangland.guatemala [Last access date
unavailable] The sun bakes the
potholed asphalt streets and concrete buildings along Avenida
Bolivar in the republic of El Gallito. Crouching in
the shade of a tamarind tree trying to escape the scorching heat, a group of
children huddle around volunteers Marcos and Katarina*, who are doing their
best to teach the kids in the racket from the nearby highway. The children are
wearing a random assortment of second-hand clothes collected by a local
catholic church. They unknowingly support American sports teams, the names of
which are emblazoned across the backs of their torn T-shirts. Each of the
hollow-eyed children clutches a solvent-soaked rag, which they sniff
intermittently to numb their physical and emotional pain. Occasionally, for
no apparent reason, one of them will start to cry, the tears streaking their
dirty faces, mixing with runny snot as they try to wipe their faces with
their sleeves. Unfortunately, the
solvent also numbs their attention span, and Marcos and Katarina patiently
try to get the children to repeat the proper names of penis and vagina,
before reminding the kids of the golden rules – wear clean underwear, wash
your private parts once a day, and go to Medicins
sans Frontieres if you notice any unusual lumps. The children of the
Republic of El Gallito are the next recruits in the
hidden civil war that is raging in Guatemala. Marcos, from child protection organisation Casa Alianza,
wearily explains why the children in the street are usually never older than
11. After that, they are old enough to join the maras,
or organised youth gangs in the area, to be used as
foot-soldiers in a war that has become endemic in Guatemala and neighbouring countries. A Lamp That Sheds
No Light Willy E. Gutman, Honduras Weekly, 31 July 2010 www.hondurasweekly.com/a-lamp-that-sheds-no-light-201007312787/ streetchildrennews.wordpress.com/2007/06/01/a-lamp-that-sheds-no-light/ [accessed 17 January
2017] 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 Human Rights Watch:
Street Children At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 19 May
2011] 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. Not ready to go
home yet Text Susan J.
Alexis; photos by Joseph J. Delconzo, The World
& I, Jan2003, Vol. 18 Issue 1, p124 www.worldandi.com/newhome/public/2003/january/lfpub2.asp [accessed 19 May
2011] connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/8962559/not-ready-go-home-yet [accessed 17 January
2017] 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. Guatemala’s violent
present Paola RamÃrez Orozco-Souel, LeMonde Diplomatique, September
13, 2006 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly also be accessible [here] [accessed 23
September 2011] 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 Guatemala Human
Rights Commission/USA, September 12, 2005 www.ghrc-usa.org/Resources/2005/CasaAlianzaAdvisorMurdered.htm [accessed 23
September 2011] 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. Richard Swift meets
an outspoken advocate for Guatemala’s street kids Bruce Harris, The
New Internationalist magazine, Issue 269, July 5, 1995 www.newint.org/features/1995/07/05/interview/ [accessed 19 May 2011] 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 Dorset or
wherever. But each letter makes street kids a little less vulnerable. Street Children in
Guatemala One to One
Children's Fund, February 18th 2003 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 19
September 2011] FEBRUARY 5TH 2003 - The body of an
indigenous eleven-year-old homeless boy, Oscar, was found hidden in a sack in
Guatemala City on February 5th 2003. he had been
shot through the head at close range and there were signs that he had been
severely beaten. Street Children in
Guatemala The Toybox Charity At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly also be accessible [here] [accessed 23
September 2011] 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 International
Planned Parenthood Federation, Western Hemisphere Region IPPF/WHR, Reaching
Out, Vol. 24, Spring 2004 (Published: 2004.04), p. 4 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 19 May 2011] There are more than
5,000 youth between the ages of 10 and 23 living in the streets of Guatemala
City; two-thirds of the girls report having been pregnant at one time, and one-third have small children with them on the
streets. A second generation of street children is growing up in the center
of the city’s drug and sex trafficking, homelessness, and police brutality. Street Children in
Latin America The Toybox Charity www.donorflex.com/index.php/products/donorflex-client-case-studies/26-toybox-case-study.html [accessed 19 May
2011] Discourse on
Applied Sociology Edited by Samir Dasgupta & Robyn Bateman Driskell,
Discourse on Applied Sociology: Volume 2. Page 21 [accessed 17 January
2017] 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’s very difficult
to tell, but it’s thought that there are 1,000-1,500 street children in
Guatemala City. In addition, there are thousands of children living at very
high risk. The Toybox Charity helps both. Rejected by
society, these children are regarded as 'disposable' and become victims of
harassment and violent abuse. Some are shot. Medecins
Sans Frontieres - Promoting Generics And Helping
Street Children Doctors Without
Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières
(MSF), International Activity Report 2004 - Guatemala www.doctorswithoutborders.org/publications/ar/report.cfm?id=1003 [accessed 19 May
2011] www.msf.org/en/guatemala-promoting-generics-and-helping-street-children [accessed 3 December
2016] 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. MSF
psychologists and educators help them on a daily basis, providing basic
health care, accompanying them to hospitals and providing counseling to
improve their self-esteem. The team works alongside members of the street
community to raise awareness of the misery of street life with the aim of
relieving the discrimination many street kids face from authorities and
public services. The therapeutic day care center in Lomas de Santa Faz, a slum on the outskirts of Guatemala City, provides
medical and psychological care for children coping with the consequences of
chronic domestic violence and neglect. These children, whose parents were
displaced during years of civil war in Guatemala, suffer from malnutrition,
physical or sexual abuse and developmental problems. Sexually
Transmitted Diseases In Guatemala City Street Children Solorzano E, Arroyo G, Santizo R, Contreras C, Gularte M., Rev Col Med Cir Guatem. 1992 Oct-Dec;2 Suppl:48-51 www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12290625?dopt=Abstract [accessed 19 May
2011] www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12290625 [accessed 17 January
2017] 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 Guatemala City over a three month period in 1991. 11 of the
children were aged 7-10 years, 47 were aged 11-14 years, and 85 were aged
15-18 years. 104 were male and 39 female. 26 were illiterate and the rest had
incomplete primary educations. All had been sexually abused. Over half had
had their first sexual experience with a relative. None had ever used
condoms. 101 of the children reported they had 1 or 2 sexual partners each
day, 6 had 3 or 4, and 36 had more than 4. 133 reported histories of sexually
transmitted diseases, of which 94 cases were ulcerative. 112 of the children
had genital herpes, 71 had gonorrhea, 39 had human papillomavirus, 19 had
vaginal trichomoniasis, 24 had chancroid,
and 6 each had vaginal candidiasis, early latent syphilis, and pubic
pediculosis. All the children reported using alcohol, tobacco, or marijuana.
All used solvents and most used a variety of other drugs. Inter
American Court Awards to Families of
Murdered Guatemalan Street Children Casa Alianza, June 13th, 2001 www.essex.ac.uk/armedcon/Countries/Americas/Future/Text/Guatemala006.htm [accessed 19 May
2011] 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. This is the first ever case in the 20 year history of the Court
where the victims of a resolved case were children. On an overcast June 16th, 1990, street children Julio Roberto
Caal Sandoval (15); Jovito
Josue Juarez Cifuentes (17) and their street youth
friends Henry Giovani Contreras (18) and Federico Clemente Figueroa Tunchez (20), were sitting in an empty parking lot at the
corner of 18th street and 6th Avenue in downtown Guatemala City. Suddenly a
pickup with two armed men pulled up beside them. With guns drawn, the two men
shouted, “You guys are pending” and started beating the youth. They literally
threw them into the back of the pick up and drove away. The kidnappers were
later found out to be two National Policemen: Samuel Rocael
Valdes and Nestor Fonseca. Several days later,
the mutilated bodies of the homeless kids were found in a residential area
called “Bosques de San Nicolas”, with their eyes
gouged out and bullets through the back of their heads. Nine days after the
initial murders, yet another friend of the four victims, Anstraum
Villagran, was shot dead in the same parking lot by
the same two policemen. Guatemalan Street
Kids Face Hardships, Death Squads Cable News Network
CNN, February 14, 1998 edition.cnn.com/WORLD/9802/14/guatemala.street.kids/ [accessed 19 May
2011] The thousands of
street urchins who inhabit Guatemala City do what they can to scrape by --
begging, selling bananas for a few pennies, salvaging what they can from the
garbage dump. Some join gangs and turn to crime. Most of them are homeless, sleeping on
sidewalks or by an abandoned train station. To curb their desperation and
hunger, many have become inhalant addicts, sniffing industrial solvents that
almost certainly cause brain damage. THEY CALL IT 'SOCIAL
CLEANSING'
- But these street kids also face another menace -- death squads practicing
what is referred to in Guatemala as "social cleansing." 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. Police Abuses -
Street children march in Guatemala Megan Coleman, Serrina Duly, Nicole Freeland, Jonah Kane-West, and Marc
McCloskey, created this site as part of a collaborative web project,
"Children Around the World" At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 19 May
2011] 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 Amnesty International,
PUBLICAI Index: AMR 34/016/2002, UA 72/02 Fear for safety 11 March 2002 www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AMR34/016/2002/en/39ff70d9-d883-11dd-ad8c-f3d4445c118e/amr340162002en.html [accessed 19 May
2011] 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. Report on the
Torture of Street Children in Bruce Harris, Casa Alianza/Covenant House, Costa Rica, 1997 -- ISBN 10: 9968983438
/ ISBN 13: 9789968983433 www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=1174&flag=report [accessed 23 May
2011] www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=8364170248 [accessed 5 December
2016] Torture Of Street
Children Bruce Harris, Executive
Director, Latin American Programmes, Casa Alianza, November 16th, 1995 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly also be accessible [here] [accessed 19 May
2011] During the past
five years, Casa Alianza's Legal Aid Office for
Street Children in Guatemala has been documenting the torture and violence
against the street children. It has been horrendous to say the least. The first case was 13 year old Nahaman Carmona Lopez, a frail street boy who was kicked
to death in the middle of Guatemala City by four uniformed National Policemen
on March 4th, 1990. Then four street youth, Julio Caal
(15), Jovito Jose Juarez (17), Federico Figueroa
(20) and Henry Giovani Contreras (18) were kidnapped by at least two members
of the 5th precinct of the National Police. Their bodies were found ten days
later - their eyes had been gouged out, their ears and tongues cut off and
then - and only then - they were shot through the head..... Continued Abuse of
Street Children Bruce Harris,
Executive Director, Latin American Programmes, Casa
Alianza, January 24th, 1996 At one time this article
had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 19 May
2011] With the changes of
government in Guatemala, we are all pulled into the false hope that the new
authorities will be able to - or want to - pull out a magic wand and stop the
tremendous violence against the street children. But then our bubble of false hopes is
popped.... State Brutality Instituto Austriaco
Guatemalteco.
Seminario Los ninos
de la calle: Una realidad
alarmante, (Guatemala: IAG, 1992), 139-40. At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] ß Note:
font color is white [accessed 19 May
2011] In the United
States, the police are the ones whom we run to if we are in danger. In Guatemala,
as well as other Latin American countries, the street children run away from
the policemen because they are the source of danger. Robbed of Humanity:
Lives of Guatemalan Street Children Urbano Latino magazine,
February 1999. Reviewed by Christy Damio pangaea.org/robbed_humanity_street_children/reviews.htm [accessed 19 May
2011] 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. PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT
ARTICLES. Cite this webpage as: Patt,
Prof. Martin, "Street Children - Guatemala",
http://gvnet.com/streetchildren/Guatemala.htm, [accessed <date>] |
