A flood of words gushes forth. I don't understand them all but his expression speaks volumes of the pain, the hopelessness, the cruel absurdity of life. Jorge is eleven. Pedro and Felipe are twelve and nine, respectively. They all look half their age.
Life is cheap.
They may never grow up. Many children were abducted, beaten, burned with cigarettes, subjected to mock executions, and sexually assaulted. Others were pushed into the countless ravines that gird Guatemala City's shantytowns, stinking chasms littered with garbage and human waste, and patrolled by feral dogs and cats. While the nineties have witnessed dramatic political changes that culminated in victories for human rights, violations continue to defile a world already crippled by war and disfigured by famine and disease. In Latin America, a region historically traumatized by social and political turmoil, branded by wild swings from dictatorship to anarchy and back, human rights violations are legion.