The Current Conditions of Street Life in Guatemala

Essay written in October, 2000

One cannot discuss the problem of street life in Guatemala without mentioning the long history of war and repression the country has suffered. Since 1492, Guatemala has been controlled by a very small minority of whites or white immigrants. The Mayan Indians, the coastal black community and those who are racially mixed have been excluded from economic and political power.

From the 1950´s, the system enforced the American equivalent of Apartheid. When Jacobo Arbenz won the election and promised to make changes in favour of the poor and marginalized, the United States intervened and re-instated the old elites. Because they had lost hope in the government, popular groups and groups of indigenous people then decided to revolt, which was the start of one of the most bloody and horrific civil wars ever to take place in Latin America.

Many indigenous people then fled to Mexico, the US or the Guatemalan capital and the country became polarised between forces of the right and those of the left. The rightists then called on the evangelicals to help to reduce the influence of the Liberation Theology movement and the Catholic church.

The war also destroyed the traditional family structure within Mayan communities and the communities of poor farmers. Violence became part of the ordinary life of the poor. Families which had played an important role in the resistance and in the struggle against poverty were divided due to political reasons or because some had to flee because of the terror.

The situation of street life in Guatemala must be seen within this context. The majority of street children are Mayan and have come to the cities to escape from their lives in the countryside. Many cannot speak their own languages anymore and have lost any sense of their traditional values. They live on the streets, lacking any culture to identify with or community to support them.

Guatemala is also unusual in the sense that there are also many children living with their families on the streets or in the garbage dumps in the capital. In these cases, NGOs working with street children are obliged to assist their families as well.

The civil war has also caused other problems in regard to street life in Guatemala. It has created a culture of violence and exclusion. Soldiers who formerly killed guerrillas and civilians in the countryside now kill street children. “Casa Alianza” has documented hundreds of cases of children killed on the streets in the last few years, mostly by police or vigilantes.

Many people feel that the war has made poor farmers politically aware. What is certain is that it has also killed the motivation of people to support civil society because it is felt that they can do very little to confront the “closed democracy” structure of the elites in power. This has resulted in many intellectuals, popular leaders and students leaving the country.

Therefore, the country lacks civil organisations that can address the problems of street children and children continue to die there on a daily basis.