Featured Story

Rescued from the Streets
Arms of Love Is Receiving New Children In Nicaragua Who Are Victims of Tragic Abuse
August / September 2003

The following article appeared in a local Managua newspaper called The New Diary, on August 5, 2003. The article had the heading, "Mother Forces Minor to Bring Home 80 Cordobas Daily or She Abuses Her."

The girl described in this newspaper article is now living at the Arms of Love Children's Home in Managua, Nicaragua. The two women mentioned in the story below -- the mother Brenda and her friend Adilia -- have hid the girl's five-year-old brother, who is current the subject of a search by the government Ministry of the Family. Please pray that he will be found soon, so he can join his sister at the Arms of Love home and escape the abuse he is also suffering.   

An eleven-year-old minor has been brutally beaten by her mother Brenda Maradiaga and another woman, Adilia Altamirano, just because she refused to continue begging for money at the public transit buses, according to the girl and her aunt, Jamileth Barrios, who had given the minor shelter at her home.

Brenda Maradiaga and Adilia Altamirano are the promoters of the minor's begging. They have about 11 children dedicated to begging on the streets, and they do not care for them. A cousin of the minor was hit by a bus recently and had to have five surgical operations, but they showed no interest in his welfare. As soon as he came out of the hospital, they sent him back to the streets to beg for money.

Jamileth Barrios said that about 4 pm. yesterday, Brenda and Adilia came to her house, located at the Laureano Mairena neighborhood, to force her to give back the child, and when the child refused, her mother started to hit her with her fists.

The child explained that for the past five years, she has been receiving mistreatment from her mother, just because she does not bring home the daily 80 cordobas she demands from her [about five dollars]. She even has hit her with electric wires, and on several occasions put burning coals on the floor and made her dance on them.

"She hits me with everything she has at hand, with wires, belts and sticks, and if not, she puts burning coal on the floor and makes me walk over them. Once she applied to my arm a burning iron because I could not bring the money she demanded from me," said the girl. The minor further explained that if she does not collect the specified amount, the mother does not give her any food, not even water to calm her thirst.

The girl that suffers this drama had a traffic accident last year, but according to her aunt Jamileth Barrios, her mother did not take her to the doctor, but instead, took advantage of the situation so the girl, with her open wounds, could collect more money on the street.

According to Barrios, "this is what motivated the girl to escape from home, because she could not endure any more mistreatment from her mother and preferred to come and live with me."

Jamileth Barrios stated that Brenda Maradiaga, the mother of the girl, threatened to file charges with the police accusing her of kidnapping the girl because, according to the mother, the girl is staying at the home of Jamileth Barrios under coercion, which was denied by the girl.

These children had been the subject of a governmental investigation for more than two years. They were first found begging on the streets in 2001, as part of the "Traffic Lights Plan 2001." The mother repeatedly committed to care for them, but instead, she continued to abuse them and put them on the streets to beg.

When this girl first came to our home, she only owned the one dress she was wearing and a pair of rubber sandals. We immediately bought her new clothes, brought her to the girls' home in Las Palmas, and since that time we have been giving her the love and attention that her life has completely lacked until now. She is one of about ten new children Arms of Love is receiving this year in Nicaragua, all of whom have been rescued from similarly tragic circumstances.

Last week, our director in Nicaragua reported that "now the girl smiles and studies hard every morning. She is already doing three-digit multiplication and is beginning to read and write. She smiles when we tell her that she will go to school next year for the first time in her life."

"A New Type Of Center"
The La Prensa newspaper in Managua, Nicaragua, ran a special series of articles on July 31, 2003, about local "protection centers" for children (a term that is generically used to describe all orphanages and children's shelters in Nicaragua). The general thrust of the articles was to expose abuse and mistreatment of children at the centers, and the series was titled, "Special Report on the Vulnerability of the Protection Centers." Beneath this main heading was a summary that read, "There are 79 centers whose objective is to rescue boys and girls from the streets and prepare them for incorporation into society. But not all of them comply with the security and control measures necessary to avoid the abuse of the minors."

The main article focused on the general circumstances surrounding the problems that exist at the protection centers, and described a report of two girls who were raped by the staff members in one of the centers. The second article, on the same page, narrated the experiences of a drug addict, who was admitted into a "Casa Alianza" refuge center. The third article, on the second page, contained an interview of Dr. Maria Teresa Garcia de La Rocha, Director General for the Protection of Minors, where she commented on the difficulties in supervising 79 children's protection centers, of which only one is funded and directly controlled by the government.

A fourth article focused on the Arms of Love Children's Home and was titled, "A New Type Of Center." The article carried the byline, "The Arms of Love protection center gives the children psychological attention, education, and lodging, and its directors are organizing projects to support the minors so they receive technical training for their future." Written by Carlos Martinez Moran, the reporter originally visited our children's home looking for negative information that could be added to the critical feature being prepared by the newspaper. Instead, he was impressed with the way in which Arms of Love cares for its children, and he returned the next day with a photographer. Carlos eventually decided to write a separate article about Arms of Love, to point out that while there are serious problems in many centers, at Arms of Love the children are happy, well treated, and are planning for a better and normal life. The resulting article read in part:

Of the 79 protection centers for minors that function in the country, only one functions under the direction and financial support of the La Familia Ministry. The rest of the centers function as non-governmental organizations that subsist through donations from sources outside of the country.

One of these centers is Arms of Love, under the direction of Mr. Emilio Padilla Morales, attending 24 children with lodging, clothing, food, and education, as well as other needs. "What I offer to the children is a home, a new style of life where they are not only fed and receive protection, but also, they are prepared to face their future life," he explained.

He added that the center has two locations to keep the boys and girls separated in order to avoid unpleasant circumstances. He also assured that they only receive children who satisfy the requirements of the law know as the "Code of the Childhood" and who are brought to the center by The Family Ministry.

Of the 24 children at the Arms of Love center, twelve are boys and live in a building located in Lomas de San Judas. The rest, a group of girls between 7 and 14 years old, live at the Arms of Love Children's Home located in Las Palmas. In both locations the children receive psychological attention, education, and food, among other needs.

Some of the girls are students with excellent grades and Mr. Emilio Padilla Morales asserts that there are projects to guarantee them and the boys a technical education after they graduate from high school.

Above the article they printed a photo of the children playing at the playground at Lomas de San Judas, with a caption that read, "In the Arms of Love Children's Home these children have found love and care that their family could not provide them."

Underneath the article, they printed another photo of the psychologist Maria Luisa Gomez Estrada, seated at her desk with Marcos Contreras sitting in front of her, and the caption read, "At the Arms of Love Children's Home every child is psychologically attended according to the problem that was the cause for their admission to the home."