SAN DIEGO ( Border Report ) — More and more children, as young as 11, are being forced to work in flea markets or as sidewalk vendors in Tijuana according to Laura Ochoa Garza, executive director of the city’s Boy’s and Girl’s Club.
” You are finding a lot of kids working in places like city areas,” Ochoa Garza said. ” They are being made to work, especially when they’re on vacation from school”.
She added that in the best-case cases, the kids are employed by their parents, but that many kids are employed by strangers or people they scarcely know.
Ochoa Garza continued,” The kids are often exposed to violence and “adult circumstances” and work long hours.
The adolescents frequently go to sleep in the places where they work without access to private rooms or showers.
” Over the past few years, we’ve seen an increase in the number of adolescents doing work like selling things on the streets of Tijuana,” Ochoa Garza said. ” It used to be only homeless kids. Nowadays, children from impoverished people are required to work and support their individuals; they are frequently exposed to unnecessary risks on the roads.
The activist said in Mexico, there are n’t many government agencies that can take in these children.
You also find children who are currently working as domestic help or who are tasked with caring for their younger siblings, making very much, she said.
471 kids are working on the streets, earning income as street singers or selling candy and other objects, according to a recent study by Baja California’s Integral Family Development company, or DIF, as it’s known south of the border.
Kids who work as vendors in markets or make stands were not taken into account in the study conducted by DIF.
