Peru is situated on the West coast of Latin America on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. Even though Peru is four times the size of Germany, it has only 25 million inhabitants. One in four lives in the gigantic concentration of population in and around Lima. 54% of the inhabitants are of Indian heritage; only 12% are white or of European descent.

In 1998, Peru?s population numbered 24.8 million. 34.4% were younger than 14 and another 20.6% younger than 24 (INEI 1998, p17). In 1995, 1.4 million children between 6 and 17 were working regularly. They are forced to work either to support their families, or they are totally left to their own devices, so they have to struggle for their own survival. 433,000 of them are not even 12 years old. Only 8% of them attend school, so there is a high percentage of children and teenagers who know neither to read nor write.

They labor under severe physical conditions on the steep, meager fields of the Andes. They are used as porters to carry heavy loads on markets and in supermarkets or exploited in factories or as servants in other people?s homes. They live totally isolated from their families, or they belong to those who were driven away from their families by poverty or violence and who live and work on the streets now.

Generally all children and teenagers who spend most of their time on the street do so because of destroyed family relationships with violence and abuse. As a result of such missing or destroyed family relationships, these children become victims of physical and psychological adult violation, profoundly disturbing their healthy personality development.

They earn their living by various means, mostly as streets vendors. All other activities, like cleaning car windshields or shoes, begging as well as prostitution take a less prominent place. Usually the children are 6 years and older, but there are exceptions, too. Only in very rare cases, they will be able to complete their education successfully. Many of them start sniffing glue at a very young age, further destroying their bodies that are already badly affected by their way of live. Usually they are addicted to glue or other substances. They live in groups of peers and obey clear group rules according to their own principles and laws.

Where there might be still a number of charitable groups working with children, there is hardly any help for teenagers in Peru.