Abandoned Children in Latin American Cities

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Abandoned Children in Latin American Cities

• Christian Ragland
• Akich White
• Jess Knecht

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What is an Abandoned Child?

• Abandoned children are children who have no
  contact with family members and resort to a
  dangerous homeless lifestyle.
• They may get involved in crime, gangs, and have
  to avoid danger at all cost.
• Political conditions, such as difficulty in
  adoption proceedings, may also contribute to
  child abandonment, as can the lack of
  institutions, such as orphanages, to take in
  children whom their parents cannot support.
  Societies with strong social structures and
  liberal adoption laws tend to have lower rates of
  child abandonment.

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World Statistics of Abandoned Children

• The United Nations estimate there to be 100
  million street children worldwide.
• Over 557,000 children under the age of 5 years
  die each year.
• Poverty is often a root cause of child
  abandonment. Persons in cultures with poor social
  welfare systems who are not financially capable
  of taking care of a child are more likely to
  abandon him/her.

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Abandoned Children or Street Children in Latin
America

• For over three decades Latin America has endured
  the unenviable distinction of having more street
  children per capita than any place on earth.
• An estimated 40 million children live on the
  streets of Latin America's densely populated
  cities out of an estimated total population of
  500 million
• More than 96,000,000 children in Latin America
  live in poverty.
• 40 of all children in Latin America do not even
  complete 5 years of education.

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What are the causes to these high rates of child
abandonment in Latin America ?

• When we talk about the high rates of child
  abandonment, we must keep in mind the various
  factors that go into this phenomenon.
• The two biggest factors that were researched
  were Poverty and Violence.

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Poverty
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Poverty

• Poverty is the lack of basic human needs, such as
  clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care,
  education, clothing and shelter, because of the
  inability to afford them.
• When we look at poverty, we must look at the
  childrens lack of a family life, education, and
  institutions to help them.

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Poverty (Cont.)

• Family life - Most if not all of the abandoned
  children are abandoned due to the fact they are
  not in the custody of their parents or other
  relatives.
• This can be due to their parents being deceased,
  parents not being able to afford to keep them, or
  the overall violence of a Latin American country
  that might of claimed their familys lives.

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Poverty (Cont.)

• Lack of Education - In many countries, it is
  mandatory that children go to school. In many
  Latin American countries, most of the abandoned
  children are running the streets rather than
  attending school.
• With this lack of education, these abandoned
  children are not getting the tools that could
  eventually get them out of poverty.
• Also, there is no system of forcing these
  children to be in school instead of being on the
  dangerous streets.

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Poverty (Cont.)

• Lack of Institutions - In Latin America, there is
  a definite lack of institutions that will help
  these children stay away from consequences of
  poverty.
• -Institutions that will provide a safe haven and
  the proper accommodations for the abandoned
  children so that they are not lost to violence,
  exploitation, and death.
• There are some institutions in these countries,
  most noticeably the churches and orphanages, but
  that has not been enough.
• International agencies are trying to help, but
  the problem is hard to fight from a external view.

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Violence
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Violence

• When speaking about violence in reference to the
  abandoned children in Latin America, we are
  talking about the unfortunate situations these
  children are put in while on the streets.
• With Latin America, gang violence is one of the
  major factors that continues the dangerous cycle
  of child abandonment.

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Violence ( Cont.)

• High death rate among street children
• Street Children in gangs and victims of gangs
• Girls fall victim to prostitution and sex trade
• suffer physical abuse and murder at hands of
  gangs and police
• Some but not all involved with gangs
• Police agents do little to investigate murders of
  street children

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Prostitution

• 40 million children estimated.
• Need for food, clothes and drug abuse lead many
  to prostitution.
• Prostitution increased with tourism.

15
Health Dangers

• HIV and other STIs are a major problem among
  street children.
• 660,000 women (aged 15) living with HIV.
• Malnutrition.
• No healthcare available.
• Drugs

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Police Response

• Social Cleansing
• Police have participated in killings of street
  children
• Weapons provided to land owners.
• Death squads

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Organ Trafficking

• Rumors started in the 1980s
• Children picked up and sold to North America
• Lower adoption rates.

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Positive Government Responses

• Brazil
• Mexico
• Colombia

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Non-Governmental Organizations

• UNICEF
• UNESCO
• MNMMR (National Movement of Street Children)
• Casa Alianza (Covenant House)
• Bruce Organization
• ENDA-Bolivia

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Questions

• Why do you think that many governments prefer
  ignoring the problem or killing street kids?
• Do you think if governments focused more on
  abandoned children, it would pose a significant
  blow to the parties benefiting from them?
• Do you think the systems for abandoned children
  in the US would work if implemented in Latin
  American countries?