Prevalence,
Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the first
decade of the 21st Century gvnet.com/streetchildren/Honduras.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
and accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the
situation in 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 *** Honduran Government
Complicit In The Murder Of Street Children Shravanti Reddy, Digital Freedom
Network, December 17, 2002 www.hrea.org/lists/child-rights/markup/msg00138.html [accessed 23 May
2011] archive.hrea.org/lists/child-rights/markup/msg00138.html [accessed 5 December
2016] As their moniker
suggests, street children have few options but to live or work on the streets
for survival. They are among the most impoverished and marginalized within
society. Murdering street children in
Honduras is considered part of an unofficial "social cleansing"
program. Viewed as
"vermin" by security forces and business leaders, the national
media has also played a role in branding street children as
"troublemakers," blaming them for everything from violent crime to
driving away foreign investment and tourism. The consequence has been
that these deaths have caused little reaction among the public who consider
street children as undesirable, despite the fact that the portrait of them
painted by the media and government is inaccurate. ***
ARCHIVES *** Honduras Street
Gangs Torture Children to Death if Refuse to Join Agence France-Presse AFP, Tegucigalpa, 10 May 2014 www.ntd.tv/en/news/world/south-america/20140509/140357-honduras-street-gangs-torture-children-to-death-if-refuse-to-join-.html [accessed 13 May
2014] www.enca.com/world/honduran-kids-killed-refusing-join-gangs [accessed 5 December
2016] Kids, even very
young kids, are often killed if they refuse to join powerful street gangs, a scourage plaguing the poor Central American nation
reputed to be the world's most violent place. This second
grandson was only seven years old. He was shot and tortured, his body found
wrapped in a sheet and dumped in a vacant lot in San Pedro Sula, north of the
capital, Tegucigalpa. The grandmother
and the mother of the child were already in shock after the death three days
earlier of another of their children, aged 13, in similarly grisly
circumstances. In the space of a
month, six more school-age children were murdered in San Pedro Sula, and
authorities say the reason was the same -- they had refused to join a street
gang. An
average of 86 children and youths under the age of 23 have been killed per
month since January 27. Long helps needy children
in Honduras Liza Matia, The Progress, February 21, 2009 www.theprogressnews.com/default.asp?read=16446 [accessed 23 May
2011] Despite that, the
country is seething with street children turned out by parents who could not
afford, or didn't want, to take care of them. The majority are uneducated,
dirty and addicted to huffing glue.
"It's cheaper than food," Ms. Long said, "and it takes
away their hunger." "Most
came from abusive homes," she recalled. "Their families just didn't
want them. They're such amazing kids; they're all really bright. It'd be sad
to think your mom didn't care about you." Hondurans see the street kids as a
nuisance, Ms. Long said, and many become desensitized to them after seeing
them day after day. Those who do want to help can't because they lack the
capacity to handle the kids' drug addictions. Narconon Trains Foreign
Addiction Counselor TransWorldNews, 12/21/2007 www.transworldnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=31126&cat=10 [accessed 23 May
2011] The orphanage in Catch a falling
star W. E. www.marrder.com/htw/jul97/editorial.htm [accessed 23 May
2011] [scroll
down to Monday, July 14, 1997 Online Edition 62] CHEMISTRY OF PROMISCUITY - According to Casa
del Niño, there are about 50 homeless children in La
Ceiba, an overly conservative estimate by their own
accounting. "We've really no way of knowing. Most are between 10 and 16.
Most are boys. Illiteracy, irresponsible paternity are
all at work. Some families have not a gram of conscience when it comes to
procreation. Use of Resistol among them is
universal. It's sold freely in the Centro Commercial. Pimps and sex tourists
often pay the children with cans of the deadly shoe glue. It's a case of
turpitude further debased by criminal indifference...." – sccp Commentary by Willy
E. Gutman www.the-signal.com/?module=displaystory&story_id=48327&format=html [Last access date
unavailable] An estimated 100
million children now live and often die on city streets around the world -
about one tenth in The price they pay
is incalculable. By far the most horrendous fate these children must endure
is the violence that permeates their existence. They live in constant fear.
Because most turn to petty crime to survive, and often use inhalants to
soften the harsh reality of their hostile environment, they are viewed as
"vermin." This perception, ignored - or bolstered - by indifferent
or openly belligerent governments, has helped unleash a tide of violence
against the world's fastest growing minority, its most vulnerable denizens:
street children. Violence against
street children - always condoned, often decreed - has returned to Guatemala
and Honduras with a vengeance.
Reports of torture, unquestionably the worst human rights violation, and the
deprivation of life by extrajudicial execution - its most extreme form - are
now being filed with alarming regularity. Street
children in Honduras The Friends of El Hogar www.foeh.org.uk/street_children_in_honduras.php [accessed 23 May
2011] In Solvent
Abuse, Certain Death for Street Children Thelma Mejia, Inter
Press Service News Agency IPS, pangaea.org/street_children/latin/hondsolv.htm [accessed 23 May
2011] Market
Children vs Street Children Chrystelle Zweidler, Jeremy Hall, and Michael Lewis, Students at www.tulane.edu/~rouxbee/kids02/hond1.html [accessed 23 May
2011] Because of the
great poverty of At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 23 May
2011] The job that Oscar
and Amy have taken on is enormous when you consider the sheer number of
children that live on the streets of the major cities of Most street
children are boys and leave their homes around the age of 12. Market children
are in general younger and the gender distribution is more equal.
Overall, street children face more and more severe risks than do market
children. They suffer from physical violence and arrests. The
number involved in prostitution is increasing and is estimated that up to 90%
of the street children sniff glue. Illiteracy is widespread and only
around 8% of the street children of Honduras attend school. The lack of
education among street and market children prevents them from earning a
steady income in the future and hence they are trapped in a vicious circle of
poverty. Child
Exploitation.org – Child
Exploitation.org At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 23 May
2011] STREET KIDS’ LOCKED
UP -
Street
children in Getting Free of
Gangs in Maryknoll Fathers and
Brothers At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 23 May
2011] To shake up the
gang mentality he has set up a fútbol (soccer) league
which has blossomed into 11 teams five boys' teams,
four girls' teams and two mara units. "My
short-term goal is to stop them from shooting each other. When I arrived in Chamelecón I literally was burying a kid a week. Caminando por la paz is an integrated,
educational training program that helps street kids turn their lives around.
For five years Father Tom has used the program to build homes, provide
schooling and job training, and help the people take back their streets from
criminal gangs. "When I first arrived here," says Father Tom,
"the pressure was to be in the gang. It was the 'in thing'. Now, it's
the 'in thing' to be in school. We've had a whole change in street
culture." Honduras: Thousands
of Street Children Prensa Latina, Feb 7, 2006 www.care2.com/c2c/groups/disc.html?gpp=780&pst=266283 [accessed 23 May
2011] The non governmental organization Casa Alianza
calculates in 10,000 the street children in Death Freddy Cuevas, The
Associated Press AP, At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 23 May
2011] Casa Alianza has reported that 843 children were killed
between January 1998 and June 2001. It attributed 7 percent of those slayings
to police, 1 percent to security agents, 19 percent to individuals and 13
percent to juvenile gangs. The cause of others was uncertain. New
Report Calls For Action On Killings Of Street Children’s Rights Amnesty
International, 25 February 2003 www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=14365 [accessed 23 May
2011] www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/honduras-new-report-calls-action-killings-street-childrens-rights [accessed 5 December
2016] Most of the victims
come from the most marginalised sectors of society,
among them the so-called "street children" and gang members. The
perpetrators are, in most cases, unidentified persons, although testimonies
from survivors and witnesses indicate that they could be police officers or
civilians acting with the implicit consent of the authorities. 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] Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61732.htm [accessed 9 February
2020] ARBITRARY OR
UNLAWFUL DEPRIVATION OF LIFE - The media reported that based on
information from government sources, vigilante activities allegedly led to
more than 970 killings in the last 7 years of known and suspected criminals,
as well as gang members, street
children, and youth not known to be involved in criminal activity (see
section 5). Approximately 80 persons have been arrested over the past 7 years
in connection with such killings, with 9 of those convicted by year's end. CHILDREN
- The
government was unable to improve the living conditions or reduce the numbers
of street children and youth.
The government and children's rights organizations estimated that during the
year there were 20 thousand street
children, half of whom had shelter. Many street children were sexually
molested or exploited. The Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 4
June 1999 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/honduras1999.html [accessed 28
February 2011] [33] The Committee
also expresses its concern about the situation of children who, because of
serious situations of extreme poverty as well as of situations of abandonment
or violence within the family, are forced to live in and/or work on the
streets and are therefore vulnerable to different forms of exploitation and
abuse, including sale, trafficking and abduction. The rising number of youth
gangs (known in All
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ARTICLES. Cite this webpage as: Patt,
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