From: Christic Institute <christic@igc.apc.org>
Subject: Children and human rights
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: ?
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 10:38:38 GMT

/* Written  9:21 am  Sep 11, 1992 by codehuca in cdp:carnet.alerts */
/* ---------- "Children and human rights" ---------- */

               Streetchildren - a growing problem

According to UNICEF (United Nations International Children's
Emergency Fund) figures there are some 10,000 children between 4
and 18 years old who daily wander the streets of Guatemala City.
Some work on the street shining shoes, selling flowers,
cigarettes, etc; others simply survive - malnourished, sniffing
glue, looking for food among the garbage, sleeping under parked
cars or on the pavement. Many survive by petty theft, begging and
prostitution, exposing themselves to all kinds of abuses and
dangers. 

This already would be enough to say it is an alarming situation,
but there is more and more information available concerning
harrassment, threats, beatings, torture, and even disappearances
and extrajudicial executions of streetchildren. This is their
daily reality.

In Guatemala, some streetchildren were displaced by the
counterinsurgency campaigns carried out by the army during the
early eighties. The violent character of these campaigns resulted
in children being separated from parents and home. Some street-
children were abandoned. Others are from broken and defeated
families, due in large part to displacements and economic
reasons, as some 80% of the population live in poverty. 

The streetchildren grow up outside of any semblance of a family
situation. The circumstances -violence and systemic poverty-
force them to the streets where they have to find a way to
survive, by themselves or in small groups.

Their presence is provoking negative and violent reactions
against them from certain sectors of the society. Streetchildren
are accustomed to neglect and destain. They grow up believing
nobody wants them. They develope little self-respect. Their only
reference is the street, the street where they have to conquer a
position within the ruling social hierachy and where they learn
that, when you are good and cunning, crime does pay.

Children, in general, in Guatemala have few opportunities to
receive any proper up-bringing or education. The possibilities
are even less for streetchildren. Although there are
organizations that work with children, it is difficult to offer a
real alternative in an unjust society like Guatemala - these
organizations cannot hope to address the needs of all the
children. 

Some children's organizations focus their work only on street-
children. Workers walk the streets and market places to get in
touch with and try to give some education to the children,
especially literacy classes. As some children, though they work
and live on the streets, maintain contact with their families,
the objective of these organizations is to offer, through
education, some sort of alternative to keep them from only living
on the streets.  
Casa Alianza is the organization with most experience in this
area. They have ten years experience working with streetchildren,
trying to get them off the street. But once the children are used
to living on the street, it is hard to change or transform that,
particularly given the limited options that Casa Alianza can
really offer. 

When one considers from where most of the children come -
displaced from war zones, or from broken families living in
conditions of poverty- streetlife offers, as the children see it,
possibilities\ alternatives, if one is cunning in crime.    

Even so, what Casa Alianza offers is better than the government
programs. The Department of Social Welfare does have
rehabilitation centers, but they are more like prisons where the
children end up being victims of physical and sexual abuse.
Neither do these centers have the infrastructure nor trained
personnel to deal with the breadth of the situation of the
streetchildren.

Human rights violations - the number of violations against these
children grew by 56% in 1991 (compared to 1990) and the fear is
that 1992 (looking at the figures for the first 6 months) will be
worse. The violence against streetchildren is making the
situation even more alarming and complicated. The perpetrators of
these violations are often police, sometimes in uniform,
sometimes dressed in civilian clothes. There are also cases known
that those responsible are members of private security companies
that operate with a licence from the National Police and the
Ministery of Internal Affairs.

These abuses are not a new phenomena. But it is only recently
that humanitarian and human rights organizations started
denouncing the violations and putting pressure on the government
to investigate the crimes and violations. It is very hard to get
those responsible convicted - impunity is a well known phenomena
in Guatemala.

Casa Alianza for instance has a legal department that right now
has some 40 cases against agents of the National Police,
allegedly responsible for numerous cases of violence committed
against street children.  

     "What we can say is that through our work the government at
     least recognizes that there is a 'problem group' in this
     country - the streetchildren", said the director of this
     organization. "If there weren't a program like ours, the
     problem simply would 'not exist' for the authorities. In
     Guatemala there are so many problems with serious human
     rights violations - of the indigenous population, women,
     opposition parties and organizations - that a problem of
     some thousands of children, whose basic rights are violated,
     daily, publicly and openly in the streets of the City,
     really this is a minor problem for the government, alomost
     invisible." (translated)

Casa Alianza not only supports these children, but they decided
also to pressure the government to change the roots of the
problem - ending the political and civil violence and bringing
about structural changes to the terribly unjust economic and
social order. 
Structural changes are necessary to erradicate poverty,
displacement and the disintegration of families, that will better
health care and the education system, to name just a few of the
country's problems. In our opinion improving the situation of
children's rights in Guatemala also demands that we work on these
underlying causes at the same time.

Contact- Marjoleine and Grahame

Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive