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| Homeless street children and teenagers, Mexico City. Few
support or social services exist for street kids here, and what services exist are primarily private initiatives. Street kids come from all over Mexico, driven by extreme poverty, familial abuse, and other factors. They frequently become part of the statistical group known as "disappeared persons." Often victims of crime and social predators, they themselves also commit street crimes as a means of suvival. Sometimes they are murdered by police or vigilantes, sometimes by each other. Tuberculosis is a critical problem among street kids, as is substance abuse, particularly glue sniffing. This photograph was taken inside an abandoned building in a working class section of Mexico City where a group of about 20 kids stayed. They ranged in age from 8 to 19 or 20. During the time TOPLAB worked with them, about half were perpetually high on glue or rubber cement, which they sniffed out of paper bags or plastic containers. A few workers from the local municipal delegacion provided some basic, but insufficient, support services to this group. A very small number of these kids will eventually be able to leave this kind of life; most, unfortunately will either disappear, die of illness, malnutrition, or drug or alcohol overdoses, or be killed. Photograph by Bill Koehnlein |