the disposable ones

Louis, Evelyn, Darwin, Christian, Fernando. Five of Colombia's 6.5 million children who suffer most in a cycle of poverty, drug related violence, civil war and family breakdown.

More than 60 per cent of the modern-day Colombians are extremely poor and many families have disintegrated. Those orphaned by the civil war, or abandoned due to drug related violence and family breakdown fight daily to survive, living - and sometimes dying - in the streets and the rubbish dumps of the cities of Bogota, Medillin and Cartegena. Unloved, unwanted, beaten, robbed, abused, raped, and murdered, Colombia's poor children are nicknamed 'ninos gamines' - THE DISPOSABLE ONES. But this is the polite name. More frequently they are referred to as 'throwaway children'.

The majority of the over a million Colombian kids working in domestic service, mining and agriculture do not receive any salary. Child labour in Latin America is a big problem. Many of these children are required to contribute something to put food on the table. An estimated 2.5 million children are forced to work to support their families. Only 60 per cent of all the children in Colombia leave school with a primary school diploma. On average, child labourers work six to seven hours a day. Their wages are pitifully low and most of them receive no health or unemployment benefits. These children end up working in construction, fireworks manufacturing, mining, brick making, markets, processing coca leaves, harvesting coffee, collecting garbage, domestic labour and even more shocking, in the sex trade ... What is worse is that this situation occurs before the impassive attitude of many people, including lawmakers who have ignored the Child and Adolescent Code.

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