Honduras fights to get begging children off streets

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (CNN) -- Honduran authorities dedicated to the protection of children and adolescents have undertaken a campaign to protect youngsters who beg on the streets.

In the capital of Tegucigalpa alone, the effort has resulted in the rescue of 350 children, city officials say.

What usually happens is that the children are forced by their parents to beg, according to the officials. Despite the rescues, hundreds more remain on the streets. One need only wait for the traffic light to turn red at a major thoroughfare to see them approach waiting cars, asking for a few coins.

Manolo, one such child, said he could make 100 lempiras ($5) per day and uses it to buy clothing.

According to official figures, more than 3,000 children nationwide are forced to beg.

The Honduran Institute of Childhood and Family, together with the police and the district attorney, carry out operations around the country to rescue the children and punish the parents.

"Many children are used for begging," said Nora Urbina, special prosecutor for children's issues. "Many children are rented and that is precisely what we hope to punish, because Article 170 of the juvenile penal code sets a penalty of up to six years in detention."

The practice takes place in all of the country's principal cities, as much by day as by night.

The national police are responsible for picking up the children, and it has helped, said Gen. Mirna Suazo, general supervisor of the "preventive police," the largest segment of the Honduran police force.

"It is an obligation not only of the police, but also any citizen of this country. A citizen has the responsibility, if there are children at risk, whose lives are in peril, to pick them up and take them to the authorities."

Those children who are rescued are taken to the Honduran Institute of Childhood and Family and then handed over to their parents or guardians with the promise that their rights will be protected.

"What we want with these children is for them to be taken care of by their relatives, that they are neither used nor exploited by effects of begging, by effects of child labor," said Zoila Suyapa Prudot, executive director of the institute.

Parents who allow their children to be exploited in this way face, in addition to as many as six years in prison, the equivalent of a $500 fine.

All About Honduras