First, however, it is worth noting that the problem of street-children in Colombia is not simply the result of over-population. Colombia is 4 times the size of the UK yet its population is only about half the size, so it is not over-populated. Nor would it be right to think that the problem is related to the Catholic Church’s ban on artificial means of birth-control: on average, Colombian couples only have three children.

Violence

In 1948 a period of virtual civil war known as La Violencia ( The Violence ) started in Bogotá and quickly spread to the countryside. Various groups of guerrillas were formed and more than 300,000 people were killed. Although La Violencia officially ended in 1953, it started a movement of thousands of peasants from their lands into the cities, and this migration has never stopped.

In the 1970s various paramilitary groups were formed and fighting between them and the guerrillas often took place in the country areas, with the peasants being caught inbetween. In the 1980s and 1990s there were many massacres, forcing even more peasants to flee to the cities. Other families found themselves threatened by groups of guerrillas or paramilitarias and forced, often at the end of a gun, to leave their homes. Many experienced the loss of their children, particularly girls, as they were taken for forced military service by guerrilla or paramilitary groups. Many were injured or killed by the mines laid to protect the drug crops and destroy the army.This, plus the continuing war against drugs, has forced many thousands of refugees to flee from the countryside into the cities and still it goes on.

Poverty

When the peasants arrive in the cities they have nowhere to live so they build shacks for themselves in the shanty-towns. In the poverty and violence of the shanty-towns
the very violence they have fled from has broken out and is beyond control. Many young people join the bandas ( street gangs) and there is a constant threat of battles between them, as they fight for supremacy. Drugs are also everywhere and the drugs gangs too fight for supremacy. Add to this the many criminal gangs that abound in the city and the level of violence is incredibly high. Life is cheap; of no value whatsoever.

In this setting live the thousands and thousands of people who have fled the violence of the countryside, and the ultimate victims are the children. Their lives are uprooted when they have to escape the violence of the countryside and they often have to leave all their possessions behind. Sometimes their families break up, as when one or both parents are killed or are forced to run away. Children orphaned in this way usually end up in the streets.

The violence affects the lives of children in other ways too. The flight of peasants from the coutryside to the cities has increased the population of the cities enormously. Not only are there no houses or jobs for the refugees, there are not enough schools either. In Colombia the schools have 3 sessions a day: morning, afternoon and evening, but there are still nowhere near enough school places for all the children.

Not only does this mean that children are deprived of their education, there is also the problem of what they do in the daytime. If their parents have work the children who don’t go to school are either locked in the house all day or are sent out into the street. In many ways street-life can appeal to a child’s sense of freedom and adventure, and so it is not surprising that it is often more attractive to them than life at home in the shanty-towns. Once in the street they are prey to all its dangers: violence, crime, drugs........and once captured by one or more of these they are unlikely to go back home.

Violence in the Home

Child labour is illegal in Colombia, but if a family is very poor the children often have to start working in the street in order for them and their family to survive. Most Colombians are generous and so the commonist activity is begging, but the children also sell things, wash car windscreens, juggle and generally use whatever skills they have. At first they normally go home at night but working on the street leads them to make friends with other children and adults who are living there.If they go home they have to hand over any money they have earned to their parents. If they have not earned enough they may be beaten so it isn’t surprising that some of them decide to stay in the street with their new friends and keep the money themselves.They then risk being drawn into real street-life with all its dangers. Working in the street is the most common route to living in the street full-time.

Although most Colombian parents are loving and reponsible, sometimes children runaway from home because of the mental, physical or sexual abuse that they have had to endure there.In many cases this is due to the breakdown of the family unit, for about one third of Colombian children do not live in a secure family. If parents split up, or if one dies, a step-father often comes onto the scene. He may well refuse to accept someone else’s children or he may abuse them. He may even force the mother to abandon them and leave them on the streets. In other cases women who have been treated badly may become abusers and mistreat their children. Some children are abused because their parents have turned to drink or drugs in order to blot out the poverty and misery of their lives. A Government report said that 70% of street-children had been beaten when they were at home.

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