RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: Arbitrary Arrests of Street Kids in ‘Clean-Up’

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Feb 13 2003 (IPS) - The police in the northwestern Argentine province of Mendoza have been detaining street children on the pretext of trying to catch the adults who allegedly exploit the minors, says human rights watchdog Amnesty International.

The police operations, given the green light by the provincial government, put more than 30 children behind bars in January without court orders for the minors’ arrests, reports Amnesty.

The arbitrary detention of street children is not new in Mendoza, where it has occurred "intermittently" over the last several years, though "never was it as massive as it has been so far this year," attorney Carlos Varela, of the Amnesty delegation in Mendoza, told IPS.

The number of adults and children begging on the streets in Argentine cities has risen quickly, hand-in-hand with dramatic increase in poverty resulting from the four years of recession that pushed the country to economic collapse in December 2001.

More than 57 percent of Argentina’s 37 million people are now living in poverty.

Around half of the poor population are children and adolescents, a situation that favours an increase in the exploitation of minors – in the sex industry, child labour and begging.

At least a half-million children were on Argentina’s streets in 2000 trying to find ways to contribute to their family income, according to the Labour Ministry. That number is likely much higher today because of the prolonged economic crisis.

The Andean province of Mendoza is not one of Argentina’s poorest. Indeed it is a region of beautiful landscapes, which draw thousands of tourists in January and February, the southern hemisphere summer months.

Since January 2002, when the Argentine peso began to lose ground with respect to the dollar, the number of foreign visitors began a noticeable increase, especially from neighbouring Chile. The exchange rate made Argentina in general an inexpensive vacation destination.

To deal with the new influx of tourists, the Mendoza provincial government is believed to have begun an urban "clean-up", targeting children begging on the streets, in the same way authorities crack down on street vendors, artisans or other informal workers.

The police use various methods in their clean-up, including relocating vendors to less conspicuous sites, seizing their tools or merchandise, or arresting them without a real motive.

"It’s clear that our province (Mendoza) does not want poverty and misery to be visible, and that’s why they invented the notion of ‘protecting the children’, putting them in jail and into the legal system. But here the problem has social roots, and the legal system and the police can’t solve it," commented Amnesty activist Varela.

Legally, children cannot be arrested and taken to non-specialised police agencies without a court order if they are not involved in committing a crime – as in the Mendoza cases -, even if there are suspicions that they are being exploited.

Amnesty International, a UK-based organisation, expressed its "deep concern" about the "arbitrary manner" in which street children are being arrested, about the "lack of information about the conditions of the arrests," and about the lack of rigorous police investigation into the alleged child exploitation networks.

According to Amnesty, legal authorities even rejected habeas corpus claims filed by attorneys to find out whether the arrests were ordered by the court.

The arbitrary arrests violate provincial and national law as well as international treaties protecting children’s rights, which have been ratified by the Argentine Congress and hold constitutional weight, notes the human rights organisation.

For example, there are rules in force which state that "no child shall be illegally or arbitrarily deprived of his or her liberty," or establish "the right of the child to protection against economic exploitation."

"There are no cases of arrests of street children," stated Gabriel Conde, community relations secretary for the Mendoza Ministry of Justice and Security. However, he did say the police "acted within the framework of the law."

The measures implemented by the police were "emergency tactics", and legal authorities intervened immediately afterwards, Conde said by way of explanation.

"It is the duty of the police to collaborate with provincial and national agencies to protect children who are orphaned, abandoned or in material or moral danger," said the official.

Several human rights organisations, Mendoza lawyers and the local media have denounced that there were no judicial orders for detaining the children, and that the minors were held in detention facilities for adults, Amnesty’s Latin America director, Susan Lee, pointed out to Conde.

Mendoza juvenile court judge Adriana Rodríguez reported that a group of street children had been arrested "arbitrarily and without a prior court order", and that she herself had to intervene so that the minors were transferred to a facility for juveniles.

"There is a danger that this will turn into a phenomenon of the police taking the law into their own hands instead of being a truly preventive measure for the effective protection of children," said the judge.