addicts haunts
Tegucigalpa Streets
By Ronald J. Morgan
For three years the life of Charlie Reyes was
incredibly simple but dangerous.
He would awaken on the hilly, traffic congested
and black diesel smoke filled streets of Tegucigalpa
and
begin begging for money. "I would accumulate around 40
Lempiras ($2.70)," Reyes now 7, remembers. Next the
money would go for Gerber baby food jars full of shoe
solvent glue known by its trade name Resitol.
The day would be spent in the cloud of a glue
high, the eyes glazed over and unfocused. It killed
the hunger pains, erased the cold at night and made
the blows of the older kids easier to withstand.
Sooner or later every day those blows would
almost always come. "It was a very ugly life," he
says. "The big people would always beat me. There were
lots of thieves."
When the need for food would finally come Charlie
could usually get a few scraps at a Burger King. "I
never spent money on food," he stresses. The glue
demanded every cent he could accumulate.
It was six months ago that Charlie walked into
the medical clinic at the Casa Alianza center for
street children in Tegucigalpa. He was soon out of his
glue stupor and safe from the blows of street
predators. Now eyes shiny clear, Charly mixes
schooling and athletic activities with a home-type
environment at a Alianza shelter home.
But unfortunately, Charly's place on the street
has already been taken by many new arrivals. Each day
one or two new children land on the streets of
Tegucigalpa, a city of 1.5 million.
Many are collateral damage from Hurricane Mitch.
The 1998 Hurricane took 6,000 lives, left 8,000
missing and caused 1.5 million homeless. Half the
dead, missing and homeless were children, according to
a United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) study.
The disaster is credited with causing a 15%
increase in children living on the streets.
Its gone up a lot," says Evelyn Esther Suazo
Lagos, coordinator of Alianza Shelter Houses. "It's
due to the death of parents, the greater poverty, the
lack of working parents and the number of families
living in shelters."
The number of children living in the streets (an
estimated 1,500 in Tegucigalpa and 5,000 nationwide)
has caused a cottage industry to form: the selling of
shoe solvent glue in poverty neighborhoods.
The glue is obtained by adults or older
adolescents for about 100 lempiras (7 U.S.) and then
resold in Gerber baby bottles for 10 lempiras (70
cents) Typically the dealer earns a 500 lempira($28
U.S.)profit on a gallon purchase. Many glue sales
areas are near market places and bridges where street
kids tend to congregate.
Some 95% of Tegucigalpa's street children are
glue users, says Casa Alianza Education Worker Misaela
Mejia. Consumption of 1 to 5 bottles of glue a day is
not unusual. The glue addicts risk chronic bronchitis,
body tremors, loss of motor functions, loss of memory,
brain seizures, blindness, damage to kidneys and
lungs,and leukemia.
Twice a day Mejia and a male co-worker visit one
of 42 areas frequented by street children in
Tegucigualpa and its sister city Comayaguela. They
provide first aid, health care information, informal
education and recreational activities.
"To live in the streets is to live a life that is
in suspension," says Mejia. The goal of Casa Alianza
is to get kids to voluntarily leave the streets and
enter one of several programs aimed at drug
rehabilitation, education and a safe sheltered life.
In one typical month six teams contacted 345
street children. Of those 85 chose to enter various
programs from emergency medical treatment, and
six-month crisis recovery stays to family
reunification and halfway house residency where
children can live until age 18.
In January a drug rehabilitation farm began
operation to provide treatment for serious addiction
patients. Crack cocaine is less evident than glue but
is making some impact, mostly among older adolescents.
"The youths that mention use of this drug are between
16-18 years old. And they are youths that usually have
gone to other countries, especially Guatemala. The
children from the streets of Tegucigalpa talk more of
glue and marijuana," says Ones Italia Garcia, head of
psychology therapy at Casa Alianza.
Most Children become street dwellers because of
family breakup,typically abuse from a step parent or
abandonment. Other children working in the streets as
vendors become enticed to runaway. The economic
pressure of Hurricane Mitch has increased this family
disintegration.
"My family life wasn't bad. I was beat at times,
but I knew how to handle it, says Marvin Matute
Martinez,15. "I got drawn to the streets by my
friends. But really they weren't my friends. They were
nothing." Matute spent age 6 to 9 on the Tegucigalpa
streets before being accepted into a shelter house
five years ago. He will be allowed to stay until age
18.
"Thank God it happened. Because I have learned a
lot about getting ahead. I'm studying now, and I'm
going to try for a profession. If I had stayed in the
streets I probably would have died. Who knows what
would have happened."
In addition to drug addiction, street children
are routinely lured into prostitution.
"Seventy to 80% of the people we see have been
involved in prostitution," says psychologist Garcia.
"The boys don't like to talk about it. But over time
it comes out."
HIV positive cases are increasingly being
identified in Alianza health screenings. In 1999 one
19-year-old woman who had been a street child and
prostitute died. Six other HIV positive youths have
been diagnosed three men and three women age 16 to 19.
One of the those, a 16-year-old girl will have a baby
in January. It is hoped, Alianza Doctor Nelson Reyes
says, that the baby will be saved from AIDS infection
by the early diagnosis. Other AIDs infected are
suspected to have died anonymously on the streets.
For girls the pressure to prostitute themselves
often is overwhelming.
"Most of the girls don't sleep on the street,"
says Educator Mejia. "Prostitution gives them money
for a room, food and drugs."
The young girls routinely produce severely
underweight babies. Other infant complications include
respiratory problems, anemia and skin infections.
Exacerbating the rough life on the streets is a
traditional disdain for street children by Honduran
Police and other sectors of society. Last year Casa
Alianza won commitment from the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson to
investigate the murders of children and adolescents in
Honduras. Some 50 suspicious youth murders have
occurred in 1998. And there has been no effective
prosecution. The Honduran Human Rights Attorney
General has alleged that death squads established by
prominent Honduran businessmen were behind at least
some of the killings.
Casa Alianza cites the April 10, 1999 murder of
Alexander Obando Reyes who was shot dead by a
policeman following an argument. "The policeman opened
fired at the ground with his rifle for unknown reasons
and one of the bullets struck Obando. We identified
the policeman and obtained positive ballistic matches
for the rifle but the policeman has fled and the
Public Ministry's office has failed to issue an arrest
warrant," says Casa Alianza Attorney Rolando Quinones.
Obando, 18, had been in out of Alianza programs for
years and had recently returned to the streets in a
relapse.
The problems facing street children are
overwhelming and the assistance available meager. But
the 12-year-old Casa Alianza continues to seek
corrective measures where in the past few thought
remedies were possible.
Social workers scout for bars using underage
prostitutes and seek prosecutions. To tackle the glue
problem prosecution efforts (Beginning in 1996 selling
glue to minors became a crime under the Honduran Penal
Code) are coupled with a campaign to have shoe
manufacturers and repair shops switch from using
Resitol to nontoxic water based
glues.
One firm which went along is Fabrica Calzada
Caprisa which switched to water based glue in 1998.
Henry Rodriguez, production manager, told Casa Alianza
that the change was made both because of the physical
and psychological damage to street children using the
solvent and because of the health problems being
suffered by plant workers.
It is hoped that over time the change in
manufacturing procedures will reduce the availability
of shoe solvent glue. Alianza also wants enforced a
1989 Decree calling for all glue to have mustard oil
which makes it difficult to inhale comfortably.
Other efforts include a mom and baby shelter
program which provides training and medical care to
adolescent mothers until their baby's are five years
old.
To improve police interaction with street
children, Casa Alianza has begun training sessions for
Honduran Police. About 300 police have completed the
course. "Before they would do things to the kids like
take their glue and pour it over their head and hurt
them. Now we have more police sending kids to Casa
Alianza," says Mejia.
During a year, Casa Alianza will manage to assist
in some way about 1,300 children. But with 74% of
Honduran families ranked as poor, with most headed by
women in precarious financial situations and with 28%
of the population beginning work at the age of 12, the
streets of Tegucigalpa are expected to continue to
draw hundreds of abandoned children for some time to
come.
###
These Honduran Street Children found an
alternative to misery in a Caza Alianza shelter home. Front Row from Left, Noel Ruez, Marvin Matute Martinez, Josue David Almendarez. Second Row from Left, Miguel Antonio, Charly Reyes. Back Row from Left Evelyn Esthere Suazo Lagos, Shelter coordinator,Roger Lindersay Figueroa, educator, Aida Martinez, cook.