Hope for the Hopeless

Nogales, Mexico

General

• Border town located just 60 miles south of Tucson, Arizona
• Unofficial estimates put the population of Nogales at 350,000
• Third largest city in the Mexican State of Sonora
• Experiencing one of the highest rates of population growth in Mexico
• Families journey to Nogales because they cannot survive in the primitive farming communities in southern Mexico. They are drawn to Nogales in “hope” of a better life in the “maquiladoras” – NAFTA factories which assemble US parts into finished products. There are approximately 90 of these factories in Nogales.
  

Poverty

• Majority of workers in the “maquiladoras” earn Mexico’s minimum wage of 43 pesos - $3 to $4 per day - $18 to $20 per week with a minimum work week consisting of at least 48 hours.
• Unable to afford adequate housing, many residents live in “colonias” on the barren hillsides around Nogales in ram shackled houses of tin, plywood and cardboard.
  

Children

• Once in Nogales, families disintegrate as many parents abandon their children while they endeavor to cross the U.S. border in search of jobs and financial security.
• Children are forced to the streets to sell trinkets and gum to earn money for food.
• Children as young as 11 years of age can be found working in the factories.
  

Lack of Education

• Education in Mexico is mandatory up to the sixth grade, however many kids do not go to school, instead they work because they are tired of being hungry.
• 20 percent of kids you see in Nogales do not attend school.
  

Abuse, Neglect, and Despair

• Alone and abandoned, many children are forced to steal just to survive.
• Young girls work the streets as prostitutes on the weekend just to make a living.
  

“Tunnel Rats”

• Children as young as 10 chose to live in the miles of concrete storm channels that run beneath the border between Nogales, Mexico and Nogales, Arizona.
• These children are part of gangs that make their living smuggling illegal immigrants through dark, damp tunnels to the US side of the border – surfacing to the streets to beg, steal and sell drugs – the girls to work as prostitutes.

Bogota, Colombia

General

• Population of Colombia is 42 million
• 42 percent of population is under 18 years of age
• Colombia has more than 15 million children
  

Poverty

• Poverty affects 93 percent of the displaced population of Colombia
• 67 percent of children between 5-9 years of age are affected by poverty
• 5 million Colombians live in extreme poverty
  

Child Soldiers

• Almost 2 million people have been displaced by violence generated by armed guerillas – affecting 52% of youth under the age of 18.
• Children are recruited, sometimes forcibly, by guerrilla and paramilitary groups to serve as combatants, messengers/couriers, and informants.
• An estimated 11,000 children are involved in guerilla and irregular armed forces.
  

Child Labor

• 2.5 million children are forced to work – 800,000 are between 6 to 11 years of age

Lack of Education

• 3 million children between the ages of five and seventeen do not attend school due to poverty, displacement and violence.

Abuse and Neglect

• Children are the principle victims of intra-family violence, physical and sexual abuse – yearly almost 2000 children are killed from abuse and neglect
• In 2007 – 35 percent of all children in Colombia did not live with their parents.
  

Disposable Ones

• “Gamines” as they are called in Colombia is a name given to street children who are deemed to be “disposable” and are eliminated by paramilitary “death squads” and vigilantes acting in the name of “social cleansing” operations.
• An average of seven children are killed every day! One every three hours!
  

Street Children

• Over 60,000 children live on Colombia’s streets – 37 percent of them in Bogota.
• It is estimated that on any given night, in the streets of Bogota, Colombia there are as many as 22,000 children without a home and most have no one to care for them.
  

Sexual Exploitation of Children

• In Cartagena, Colombia it is estimated that 1500 girls and boys work in the sex industry. Girls as young as 7 and boys as young as 9 are being sexually exploited.

YWEA is a ministry of Church of God International Youth and Christian Education Department in partnership with World Missions. Click here to learn more about youth and missions.