COCAINE'S CHILDREN LIVE IN PROSTITUTION

Drug Habit Drives Guatemala Street Youths

GUATEMALA CITY -- To support her crack habit, 15-year-old Leslie Sandoval
does what she can. "Sometimes I beg. Sometimes I rob," she says. "Or I get
into cars with men."

The number of Guatemalan street children working as prostitutes is rising
and the booming use of crack cocaine is largely to blame, government and
aid groups say.

"It didn't used to be so hard for girls on the street to get drugs such as
glue," says Arturo Echeverria, director of Casa Alianza, an advocacy group
for street children. "But the higher price of crack has induced more
children into prostitution."

The pattern is being repeated across Central America, where younger and
younger girls are becoming prostitutes as drug use rises.

In a recent study of 300street children by the Nicaraguan Ministry of
Family, just over 80percent said they had begun to work as prostitutes in
the past year. Most said they did so to get drugs; nearly 30percent said
they needed the money to buy crack.

Casa Alianza says many suffer from venereal diseases, a sign that
prostitution may be common.

In response to growing complaints about sex tourism, Costa Rica recently
strengthened its family and child code to allow prosecutions of adult sex
clients for child abuse even when they pay children for the services.

Nowhere has child prostitution taken off as in Guatemala.

A big factor is the increased availability of cocaine. U.S. Embassy
officials say drug gangs now use cocaine instead of money to pay people who
help smuggle drugs from South America to the United States, adding to the
local supply.

Also, a slight reduction in cocaine use in the United States has prompted
traffickers to try to expand their Central American markets. And the
problem has been aggravated by a general rise in crime since the 1996 peace
accords ended Guatemala's 36-year civil war.

More children are ending up on the streets because the economy has not kept
pace with population growth and migration to the capital, says Cesar
Estrada, director of Casa Alianza's home for teen-age mothers in Guatemala.

In a nation of almost 11million people, 3,500 children live on the streets,
according to government figures. Child advocacy groups put the figure
closer to 6,000. No one has statistics on how many are working as
prostitutes, though there is general agreement the number is increasing.

Leslie says she left home two years ago to escape family problems.

"My stepfather left my baby sister outside, and she got sick and died. I
was so sad because I loved her so much. He was beating my mother, and I was
going to kill my stepfather if I didn't leave. My sister took me to the
streets, and I got to know people here."

She lives with friends in a cardboard-and-wooden shack behind an outdoor
vegetable market.

Her clients, generally older Guatemalan businessmen, pay her 20 quetzales,
the equivalent of about $2.60. She needs two clients to earn enough to buy
two crack rocks the size of marbles - enough to provide a half-hour high.

She says some of her friends also work as prostitutes to buy crack. Few
admit it.

One friend, Roxana Adolf, says only that she has been tempted. Roxana is 16
and has a tattoo on her back reading: "Mother, forgive me for the wild life
I lead."

She said her boyfriend would kill her if she prostituted herself.

"Yesterday a man came up and asked me. I was going to take the money and
run, but he said we had to go to the hotel first, so I said no," Roxana
says. "He was so fat and ugly."

Neither the government nor private agencies have much hope of slowing the
rise in child prostitution. Guatemala's police are overwhelmed by other
crime and have made fighting prostitution a low priority.

Deborah Cobar, director of the Attorney General's Office on Child Welfare,
says the state doesn't have the money to provide the counseling that could
help children get off the streets.

A few private institutions, such as Casa Alianza, offer help, but they are
finding it increasingly difficult to raise money.

"It's out of fashion," Cobar says.

Those helping prostitutes sometimes have to resign themselves to
accomplishing only modest goals. A social worker is helping Leslie and her
friends write rules to govern life in their shack.

One rule reads: "I will not steal anywhere on this block."