Street children in Latin America

Home-based street children can emerge when families in desperate economic situations send their children to seek work on the streets. Children may first accompany their parents or older siblings on their street jobs, and then transition to their own jobs. As children spend increasing amounts of time on the streets, engaging in street work and activities, they become more independent and see their families less and less. Eventually they may become completely estranged from their families, thus becoming street-based street children. Other times, the switch to a street-based street child is more abrupt: some children are cast onto the streets, losing complete contact with their families, due to family issues such as the death of a parent.[1] As street-based street children, these youth must provide for their own basic necessities such as food, water, clothing, and shelter.[6] Many of these street children are also migrants. With or without their families, they travel from rural areas to urban cities in search of work. Some children leave their homes with the intention of reaching USA. Yet when they arrive in the cities, they discover that their opportunities are limited to street work.[9] In recent years, natural disasters such as Hurricane Mitch and the earthquake in Haiti have dramatically increased the population of families in poverty and therefore the number of migrant families and children.[10]

Besides low economic status, studies have shown that larger populations of street children emerge when there is insufficient housing, inadequate government support and assistance for those in poverty, a high birth rate, and a high incidence of rural-to-urban migration.[11] This is especially prevalent in Honduras, where poverty drives poor families to seek work in cities. Once in cities, these same families feel pressured to have more children to increase their labor assets because of the large working street child population. Some visitors have reported that Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, is overflowing with street children.[12] Likewise, in Brazil, urban street children are generally males originally from rural, economically disadvantaged families that work in agriculture.[13] However, although an overarching reason for many street children in Latin America is poverty, different regions have different vulnerability factors as well. In La Paz, Bolivia, one study that surveyed 124 children "of the street" reported five primary reasons for leaving home: 40% said physical abuse, 18% said death of a parent, 16% said being abandoned, 13% said mental abuse, and 7% said poverty.[14] Studies in Mexico also show that parental neglect, physical abuse, and abandonment increase children's vulnerabilities. Living in Mexican urban slums, called colonias marginales, also places these children at risk for becoming street children because they often lack economic stability, educational opportunities, public services, social infrastructure.[15]

Many street-based children form peer support groups (called turmas in Brazil) for physical protection from assaults and for emotional support. Groups are usually made up of street-based children; home-based children without parental supervision on the streets may have friends that protect them, but they are usually not part of a specific peer support group. Although they are not technically “gangs” with hierarchies and leaders, these groups often have strict rules, punishments, and initiation ceremonies.[17] Consequently, peer groups often influence members to engage in illegal drug usage, drug dealing, and theft.[18]

Peer groups provide street children with a sense of identity. Although groups usually form firstly for physical protection, their secondary function of providing camaraderie and love is often just as significant for the mental health and stability of street children.[18] These peer groups are also outlets for sexual behavior; sexual relationships with friends within peer groups reinforce bonds between group members, but sex and rape can also be used as a punishment for rule breakers.[19] Most of these sexual acts are unprotected, increasing the risk and spread of STDs such as HIV among street children.[20]

Some of the prevalent drugs among street children are everyday inhalants (i.e. paint, glue), marijuana, cough syrup, substituted amphetamines, cocaine, and hallucinogenic teas.[17] In Brazil, Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Peru, coca paste is a popular drug for sale and use among street children. Though coca paste is a precursor to cocaine made from coca leaves, studies have shown that it is more dangerous, as it contains toxic processing chemicals such as kerosene, sulfuric acid, and methanol, which are removed from cocaine.[21] Glue is another frequently used and dangerous drug. In Honduras and Guatemala, children sniff Resistol, a toulene-based glue. Although toulene produces a desirable high, it is also a neurotoxin. Prolonged exposure leads to irreversible nerve damage, muscle deterioration, loss of brain function, dysfunctional kidneys and livers, and diminished ability to see and hear. Despite public outcry and pressure to change, the company that produces Resistol, H. B. Fuller, has generally denied its role in enabling the destructive behaviors of street children. They have replaced toluene with cyclohexene, another neurotoxin that produces the same high and has the same side effects.[3]

More street-based children engage in drug usage than home-based, and many street-based children are dependent on drugs. Street children take drugs for a variety of reasons: to allay hunger; to deal with loneliness, fear, and despair; to feel warm in the cold; and to cope with prostitution and theft.[17] Although many sociologists report mentally stable street children, others suggest that drugs may affect street children's cognitive functions and perceptions. Drugs may also increase their violent and sexual inclinations.[2]

Many street-based children have been in juvenile court or prison due to theft or vagrancy.[17] Some street children report the police—not hunger or loneliness—as their greatest fear. In Brazil, between 1988 and 1990, a recorded 4,611 street children were murdered by police.[18] High numbers of street children murders by police have also been reported in Guatemala and Colombia.[18] Hostility and violence towards street children may originate from their indigenous background, indicated by their darker skin, or from their insubordination to authority figures.[2] Street children are commonly viewed as threats to society, as thieves and criminals. Under child labor laws, even legal work is illegal, and street children are thus often legal targets for police harassment and incarceration, even if they are not selling drugs, stealing, or engaging in other illegal activities.[1] Children have worked on the streets of Latin America for centuries, yet it is only recently that the prevailing public perception of them has been negative. People group street children with criminals and school drop-outs, as mentally unstable and emotionally underdeveloped individuals incapable of contributing to society.[22]

Street children also fear each other: street children frequently attack each other with knives and fists to protect their jobs or property. Older street children often rob younger ones of their valuables. Younger girls are the most often victimized by both older boys and adults by physical assault and sexual harassment.[18]

The mental state and health of street children is a controversial topic. Some studies claim that the constant malnutrition, drug usage, sexual activity, abuse and harassment that street children suffer from and engage in results in decreased mental and emotional health. They have found that street children often have low self-esteem and are prone to anxiety and depression.[19] Other studies suggest that street children are more mentally stable than the public perceives and media portrays them to be. A study conducted in Bogotá showed that street children were independent, creative, and well-supported by their peers.[12] In Brazil, surveyed street children said they were optimistic about the futures: they wanted to leave the streets and aspired to pursue careers such as manufacturers, artists, teachers, and drivers. Very few said they did not want to work.[21] However, many studies on the mental state of street children are inconclusive because of the unknown effects of drugs, and the varied experiences and situations of street children.[12]

In the past, there have been efforts to institutionalize street children, to “re-educate” and “correct” street children. In Brazil, over half a million street children were institutionalized in 1985. However, this approach proved to be ineffective and expensive: it treated all street children like criminals, when a majority were not, and focused on “correctional education” instead of providing the necessary support and care that street children needed and lacked while on the streets.[6]

Other organizations such as local churches and volunteer organizations have approached the problem through rehabilitation. This approach takes the near opposite of institutionalization: it cares for children, providing them with shelter, food, education, clothing, medical care, and a safe environment. It successfully provides for children and helps them survive, but often does not effectively motivate children to seek legitimate employment or get off the streets. Like institutionalization, rehabilitation is expensive. Furthermore, most rehabilitation programs are long-term commitments that street children are unwilling to make.[6]

Based on these past attempts to recover street children, most organizations now take the outreach approach. Instead of focusing on providing for street children and society's perceptions of street children, the outreach approach views street children as results of poverty and works to empower them by teaching them problem-solving skills and treating their issues on a community-by-community basis. Many outreach-based programs send street teachers to educate children on their home turf (parks, sidewalks, parking lots) about applicable issues.

By helping street children in their everyday difficulties, these organizations help children provide for themselves.[12] For example, street educators throughout Latin America have helped street children form working relationships with market traders—instead of tossing and further damaging unwanted fruit, market traders give slightly damaged and overripe fruit to street children to eat or sell. In Asunción, Paraguay, outreach workers identified that many street children were suffocating when they built fires in cisterns and then trapped themselves in the space. Outreach organizations educated street children on how to safely handle and build fires, and also were advocates for street children who died trying to survive. Some criticize outreach programs because they, like rehabilitation programs, do not fix the issue of street children. Proponents of outreach programs claim that their practices are built on the ideology that street children are unfortunate effects of societal deficiencies, and therefore the only way to effectively assist street children is through empowerment and applicable assistance.[6]

To complement the outreach approach, other organizations such as UNICEF take a preventative approach to the issue: they provide programs to empower and employ poor families, to try to raise them out of poverty so that children are not driven to the streets, and also work with policy makers to address the underlying issues such as unemployment, rural-to-urban migration, and insufficient housing. In Paraguay, efforts have been made to increase school hours and education to keep children off the streets. Other efforts include more vocational training for parents, welfare programs for families in poverty, and increased affordable day care for children. However, like other approaches, preventative efforts are expensive. Most Latin American governments are in too much debt to have effective welfare or educational programs.[4][6]