by Margarita Durán

			Jorge Martinez holding Pokemon pogs.

Behind a curtain of international business and wealth in México City, poverty and violence hide thousands of children, like 12-year-old Jorge Martinez, who live on the streets.

Jorge arrived from the State of Veracruz as a newborn with his mom, dad and sister to better themselves. But at age six, he learned about the life on the streets when his father kicked him out of the house.

"I didn’t like my dad’s behavior," he says. "He took drugs and beat up my mother and sister."

To survive, Jorge performed as a clown, begged, cleaned windows and sang on buses during the day. Before searching for a spot to sleep near the train stations, he would chat about their adventures with his buddies who also lived on the streets.

Jorge is friendly, with a brilliant nonstop smile. In a normal day Jorge earns about 500 Mexican pesos, which he spends quickly, playing video games, eating his preferred dish, "pollo en salsa verde", smoking cigarettes and drinking mescal.

There are thousands of kids like Jorge, some as young as six, who are forced to live on the streets. Prostitution and, according to some social workers, the sale of organs stolen from children are increasing rapidly. They say government pays little or no attention to this problem.

			A Mural at Casa Alianza

The problem goes beyond poverty, said Maria Elena, a coordinator at Casa Alianza. She says these kids belong to the less represented and marginalized class. The majority of them come from the poor states of Veracruz and Tabasco and the outskirts of the city.

"The problem about the kids on the streets is not only about an dysfunctional family, it is a symptom of society, " said Maria Elena.

"Generally the kids on the streets you see dressed as clowns, cleaning windows, singing on busses or begging for money are just trying to survive," she said. They organize themselves to be able to eat or to buy drugs. "This is a way to buy a taco, a torta or the drug to satisfy their basic need," she said.

The nation’s financial, social and political system fails these children, she said. "It doesn’t work for the people, but it would function for the groups close to the government, like the bankers."

But for the majority of the people there isn’t an answer and poverty has increased quickly in the last 10 years, she said. The misery is greater in México now than before and as a result families are in a greater danger of emotional destruction.

Jorge is one of the luckiest children. He used to hold several jobs, and did not bathe or take care of himself. After five years on his own, Jorge stays at La Casa Alianza, a shelter that holds about 300 children a day, many at risk of getting hurt or abused on the streets.

In a recent interview, Jorge wore a baggy pink shirt that was ripped on the side, black pants and black tennis shoes. He keeps a Pokémon poster by his triple bunk bed in a room he shares with twenty other kids. Besides drawing, painting and playing sports, Jorge collects Pokémon pogs to entertain himself.

Among México’s poor children, Casa Alianza, is known as a five-star hotel because it is big, clean and neat. It helps children reconstruct their lives and has broadened its resources in the past two years. It has implemented two new programs. One, called "Educators on the Streets," advises kids about drugs, violence and education, as a transition point before entering Casa Alianza.

Luna, the other program, provides lectures on prevention of sexually transmitted diseases. It was created because of a great increase of STD’s, like herpes and chlamydia, among kids who at an early age become sexually active without any protection.

HIV is also a serious problem. Casa Alianza houses about 300 kids a day, between the ages of 10 and 17. Seven out of 10 are boys and nearly all are tested for HIV, the retrovirus that precedes AIDS. Ten percent of the children have tested are positive for HIV and twelve of them have died of AIDS, says Nicasio Garcia, HIV counselor at Casa Alianza.

Casa Alianza helps approximately 5000 children on the streets. Garcia said the number of HIV-positive children among them has increased by 7 percent. The majority of them who are sexually active have been brutally sexually abused by adults, sometimes from their own families or the police. They become prostitutes to buy drugs, which help them escape from the pain and shame of what has happened to them.

About 90 per cent of these kids consume drugs, and 30 percent are addicted to narcotics and require treatment. For the treatment to be effective, though, the child must be willing to get help. When counselors try to approach them, they react defensively and insist they don’t need any help.

Julia Abdala, a founder of La Casa de Las Mercedes, a shelter that houses ex-prostitutes said, "The kids from the streets are a mob business. These kids come to the train stations looking for something to eat or to better themselves in the city. So these mobs come up to them offering them 50 or 100 pesos. The first three days they give it to them, but later they drug these kids and take their money away."

"This is a mob, guarded very well," she said. And the government does little to fight this problem. "There aren’t any laws to regulate the problems of minors," Maria Elena said.

Jorge has been staying at la Casa Alianza for a year now. He says he’s determined to succeed without his family’s help. He’s learning how to take care of himself with lessons on fixing his bed, taking a shower and practicing proper table manners.

Soon his counselor at the shelter will notify him about when he will start school, even though he still doesn’t know which grade he will be in. But Jorge is happy where he is.

"I don’t even want to go [back] to sleeping on the streets," he said. "Thank God I've found this place."