Were not parts of this story recently debunked? I heard the NYT reporter who wrote this was accused of manufacturing quotes and parts of this story--a la the ficticious Washington Post story in the 1980's about a 9 year old drug pusher.
I don't doubt the horrors of the sex trade--and the hell its victims endure. If I am wrong about the accustation against the NYT--please correct me.
I don't know if this story has added parts --- but the problems in Mexico are definitely real, and it's all moving over to this side with massive immigration by the same people involved in all this in Mexico.
Casa Alianza is the Latin American branch of the Catholic Covenant House, they work with the street children of Mexico City. Any of us who have been to Mexico City --- and I would think all their cities, knows there are enormous numbers of children abandoned to the streets. Obviously many become victims of prostitution --- and to many smugglers of humans would just be another source of money to be made.
http://www.casa-alianza.org/EN/street-children/ In Guatemala, about 70 percent of the population lives in extreme poverty, which means they cannot meet on a regular basis their most basic needs for food and shelter. In Honduras, 80 percent live in extreme poverty. In Mexico City, the most populated city in the world, it is estimated that three out of ten children fight to survive in the streets.
Throughout Latin America, millions of children are born into shantytowns, colonias, that have mushroomed on the periphery of large cities during the last 30 years, a result of rapid urbanization and the absence of land reform policies. In Guatemala, two percent of the population owns 80 percent of the agricultural economy -- the arable land.
Victims of civil unrest and other societal dynamics, the children who take to the streets are viewed by some social psychologists as adapting functionally to otherwise unworkable home situations.
The social phenomenon of street children is increasing as the Third World population grows. In fact, the largest-ever global generation of children will be born in this decade. Four out of ten urban dwellers are expected to be under 18 years of ageby the year 2000. That number is expected to increase to six out of ten by 2025.
The incidence of HIV infection among street children is increasing. The Houston Chronicle reported that among 121 Mexican street children tested for HIV in 1988, about seven percent tested positive. The Mexican government's AIDS agency said then that the cases were only the "tip of the iceberg" among the estimated two million children living in Mexico City's streets. The government AIDS-testing program for street children was stopped, however, because it could offer few services once full-blown AIDS cases were detected.