Juan José is 12 years old, but her starving body stripping age. Walk through the halls of a Mall of El Marqués with a small tri-color school bag - delivered by the State in September 2015 - where could carry notebooks or a ball.
Lives with a cousin in Petare, not studies, not has answers to the question on the whereabouts of its breast and have elapsed almost 24 hours from your last food. However, relates perfectly its tactical to get the sticks to shoes to which is addicted.
The testimony of John not is a case isolated. Like him, dozens of children in begging State have had to resort to various methods of quench - or forget - hunger. From borrow money in malls to make magic in cafes tricks have been transformed into livelihoods for young people, who are satisfied with eating a piece of bread a day.
Hunger that shames
"I ask for money because I have hunger", says Luis, of 13 years. He lives in la Vega, but moves daily to the California North to avoid their neighbors or friends to see it.
I ask to eat, because in my house not enough money to feed my family,"says the 14-year-old boy who lives with his mother, his grandmother and two younger siblings.
Pedro has a year without studying, but sucked back. His parents separated makes approximately the same time, situation which affects, obviously, their emotional state. A single food to the day, that acquires with the money that collects, it motivates to continue begging in the corridors of them centers commercial.
The return of a problem without end
The begging children not is new; the "huelepega", as were called in the years 90, either. Not strange that the promise of a solution has formed part, even, of the electoral campaign of the deceased President Hugo Chávez. "I, Hugo Rafael Chavez cold, I forbid to me himself that has children of the street." "Will be the first guilty if there are children of the street in Venezuela", said after being elected President, in December of 1998.
Its reaches local also were object of study. "In Venezuela, the phenomenon of them children and girls in situation of risk or abandonment is so growing as recent and is multiplied them last six years, to the aggravated is the fall of the income real of them families and their consequent disintegration".
He scope of the problem caused, including, the realization of analysis of the "narcotic" from the Institute Venezuelan of research scientific, whose results triggered campaigns national-directed by different organizations not governmental-that urged it ban of the sale of the product to minor of age, claiming that elements chemical as the toluene and cyclohexane (present in it sticks) were addictive and, therefore restricted drugs should be considered.
Unfulfilled duties, realities that scare
The organic law for the protection of children and Adolescents establishes in its article 4 that "The State has the unwavering obligation to" take all the administrative, legislative, judicial, and any other measures that are necessary and appropriate to ensure that all children and adolescents enjoy fully and effectively their rights and guarantees.
Conclusion
Children and young people, have been more concerned with the situation of the country, the economic crisis, has deteriorated it the situation in Venezuela, leading young people to beg for money in their homes, a frightening reality, and removing the future these children...