CERRO PATACON GARBAGE DUMP, PANAMA — When the heavily laden garbage trucks make their daily trip up the winding gravel road that leads here, they are met by three teenagers and a swarm of buzzards.
The three youths are among some 300 Panamanians, most of them young, who come each week to sift through the mounds of garbage for cans, bottles, old clothing, discarded tires and anything else they might be able to sell. The buzzards look for bits of food.
Lucho Sandoval, 15, his brother Dionicio and their friend Luis Vasco, both 17, spend five days a week at the dump, whiling away the nights in one of scores of plastic-covered cardboard huts spread throughout the site.
``We do this because there is not enough money at home,`` said Lucho, who has four younger brothers. ``Things are difficult. If we steal it`s a problem, so we are here doing this.``
He said his mother earned about $100 a month in one of the street-sweeping brigades sponsored by the Panama City government.
For thousands of Panamanians clinging to the hem of society, the quality of life has eroded substantially since 1987 with the sanctions imposed by the U.S. in its campaign to drive Gen. Manuel Noriega from power.
Now, 17 months after a U.S. invasion toppled Noriega and a new civilian government pledged to democracy was installed, economic problems persist. It`s especially true in the diminishing middle class and the growing numbers of poor.
The Ministry of Planning and Economic Development estimates that half of all Panamanians live below the poverty line, defined as income of less than $390 a month.
And health experts, nutritionists and human rights officials say children are among the most affected.
Rosa Elena De La Cruz, director of the ministry`s social department, said 24 to 30 percent of the nation`s children aged 1 to 5 suffer from malnutrition. She said the situation was more severe among the aboriginal Indian populations, where malnutrition sometimes affected 70 percent of children.
Ilka Esquivel, a nutritionist, said in Panama`s central provinces about 25 percent of schoolchildren have goiters, a gland disorder caused by inadequate nutrition. And a report by the Technical Judicial Police, a national detective agency, concluded that 60 percent of all children in Panama under age 18 use drugs.
But perhaps the biggest problem facing children is the unemployment crisis faced by their families.
Children ranging from ages 2 to 15 increasingly are appearing on busy and dangerous city streets, begging for coins, washing car windows at traffic lights and offering to guard cars of restaurant patrons and shoppers.
The plight of the children in the streets has focused public and government attention on the myriad perils they face.
``Unemployment of parents is the biggest problem. We need jobs. If people had work, children would not go on the street,`` said Panama City Mayor Mayin Correa, who recently ordered municipal workers to begin rounding up children and return them to their homes.
``We found that the children were skinny and their teeth were rotting so we will begin a program next week to provide milk and soybean cookies in school to help improve nutrition,`` Correa said.
It`s not clear exactly how many of Panama`s children work the streets to supplement-or provide-their family income. Human rights groups put the number in the thousands and cite the increase in other dangers such as child prostitution and narcotics trafficking.
``Nationwide, there may be thousands of children on the street,`` said Ariel Guevarra, a counselor for Casa Alianza, a youth service center. ``Some are sent there by their parents, some are there because of abuse, and some are there because they want to raise money to buy something special they want. These are people living day by day on luck.
``We are working with one family in which the parents sent eight children, including a 2-year-old, to work the streets. In some cases the parents have no work, in others they may be addicted to drugs and in others they may be too lazy to work,`` he said.
``Frequently, the children are given quotas and are punished if the quotas aren`t met,`` said Ariel Montero, legal adviser for the Panama Committee for Human Rights. ``Sometimes the child is the principal
``A problem with the rise in children on the street is that it often results in the child being involved in child prostitution or their being used as `mules` by drug traffickers.``
``Mules`` are people who smuggle narcotics, usually by concealing the drugs in their clothing.
At a busy city intersection, Francisco Ramon Asprilla begged for coins. He said he needed to get medicine for his ailing mother and to help provide food.
``At times I am hungry, and I use some of the money. Sometimes, when they cook at home, there is not enough food and I am left out,`` he said.
Francisco is 9 years old, and the youngest of six brothers.
``The majority of these children do not attend school, which means we are developing a professional class of beggars, car watchers, prostitutes and drug traffickers,`` Montero said.
The government is criticized by health officials and by the poor for not doing enough about the crisis.
``Millions of dollars come into Panama, but the government does nothing with it to help us,`` said Emilio Cordoba, a former government worker who said he joined the brigade at the garbage dump after he was laid off two years ago. Montero said the Labor Ministry abolished its only general family services program several months ago. ``This is a step backwards,`` he said.