DISPOSABLE CHILDREN The Hazards of Growing Up Poor in Latin America
The drama unfolded before one of the NACLA editors as she was sipping coffee at an outdoor caf6 in Cochabamba, Bolivia several years ago. A little girl, no more than six, was crying forlornly at...
...The lives of children bear the strongest imprint of the tremendous social and economic upheaval that has rocked the region over the past 15 years...
...On the one hand, as the UNICEF report, The State of the World's Children 1994, points out, gradual advances in science and communications over the course of history, coupled with rising awareness, mean that we now have the ability to eradicate childhood disease and hunger which have plagued the world for centuries...
...The little girl, her cheeks still wet with tears, approached the table...
...This NACLA report examines the lives of Latin America's children who are caught in the vortex of these contradictory tendencies...
...The simultaneous breakdown of the family and the stripping away of social protections traditionally provided by the state have forced children to contribute to family income or fend for themselves...
...Childhood-a phase of life meant to be carefree and safe, a time of learning and discovery-is for many children in Latin America an initiation into hardship, shame and suffering...
...The little girl wept, and shook her head...
...The older girl would not relent, and gave her sister a shove...
...An older girl, perhaps 10 or 12 whom she took to be the child's sister, was cajoling the youngster: you must do it...
...I n this report, we look at Latin America's poor children in the context of the recent shift to neoliberal economic policies, the unambiguous growth in poverty, and a process of democratization that has laid bare the once-masked cleavages between social classes...
...go ahead...
...Underlying the blatant exploitation of minors by adults is the playing out of the new social and economic relations in an extreme form...
...In fact, the authors say, most of those considered street children maintain close ties to family, and are in the street because it is the locus of economic struggle...
...These girls end up on the street as a consequence of the pull of hoped-for economic gain and the push of broken homes...
...These same pressures have led children to seek other structures-sometimes illicit-of authority and camaraderie...
...A little girl, no more than six, was crying forlornly at the perimeter of the tables...
...The flexibilization of the labor force, for instance, has resulted in an explosion of child street vendors...
...Her eyes cast to the floor in shame, she put out cupped heads and asked for some coins...
...Nancy ScheperHughes and Daniel Hoffman argue that in Brazil the term "street children" is used by one class (the wealthy) to classify those children of another class (the poor) who have the audacity to transgress social boundaries...
...Gilberto Dimenstein looks at the experience of young girls who have been swept up into the prostitution racket in the Brazilian Amazon, a set-up reminiscent of slavery...
...At this moment, we are witnessing the collision of two trends...
...Studying the sicarios, Colombia's young hired assassins, Alonzo Salazar reveals how strains on the family and limited economic prospects propel teenage boys into the hands of the wealthy drug traffickers...
...On the other hand, we are living in an era in which the ascendency of free-market economic policies has grossly increased the disparities between rich and poor, and created massive social disorganization that has undermined the traditional supports of children's lives...
Vol. 27 • May 1994 • No. 6
