-Caveat Lector- excerpts from http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-103001urchins.story
This may be heavy for survivors of abuse. October 30, 2001 A Tale of Afghan 'Garbage' Kids Refugees: With no hope nor future, they rummage for scraps. Their numbers are likely to swell. By TYLER MARSHALL, Times Staff Writer QUETTA, Pakistan -....The children, some as young as 7, were born of the generation of Afghan refugees that flooded into Pakistan in the 1980s and 1990s to escape the plagues of war, anarchy and drought. The poorest of these people--those with no money, no skills, no hope and no future--have turned to their youngsters for help surviving. Here in the city of Quetta, just 50 miles from the Afghan border and already swollen with refugees, an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 youngsters are known simply as "the garbage children." On a good day, Hakim, 15, says, the brothers' pooled earnings can reach $1.50--enough to pay for a few days' rent on the family's shanty. On bad days, they bring in less than 50 cents. In Quetta, Karachi and other Pakistani cities, these boys exist in a kind of Dickensian twilight zone, a filthy and dangerous world. As they walk the streets and rummage for scraps, they are weak prey to every form of lowlife predator, from petty thieves, drug peddlers and pedophiles to sophisticated kidnapping rings that traffic in blood and human organs.... "These boys have no education, they have no future," said Naimathullah Baloch, deputy director of the Directorate of Social Welfare, Human Rights and Women's Development for the Baluchistan provincial government. "They are the breeding ground of gangsters and thieves. The law and order situation is getting worse because of these people. Someone should say it." Few Resources Available to Help the Youngsters With thousands of new refugees pushing across the frontier in recent weeks to escape Afghanistan's latest agony, the ranks of these youngsters seem bound to swell and their conditions worsen. ..."The numbers are growing," he said. "Where there were once a hundred boys combing the same area, now there are 500. It's a terrible situation." <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
