IN MEMORY OF RITA ESMERALDA GÓMEZ, A TEENAGER MURDERED TOGETHER WITH HER CHILD OF SIX MONTHS OLD
	“The fundamental right to life includes, not only the right of all human beings not to be deprived of life arbitrarily, but also the right to not be impeded in accessing conditions which guarantee a dignified existence”   (Evaluation of the Interamerican Court of Human Rights in the instance of murdered street children).

Rita Esmeralda Gómez Hernández is a prototype of the hundreds of Guatemalan children and young people excluded by society, who experience at a young age the suffering of life on the streets, and later death.  Rita is another victim of the social cleansing that confronts these Guatemalan children and young people, since she was murdered along with her six month old baby, and her partner.  These crimes are committed with impunity. 

Rita was born on the 12^th of May in 1987 in a marginalized area of the City of Guatemala.  She grew up in extreme poverty.  Her Mother abandoned her when she was a year and six months old, and she stayed under the care of her older sister and Father.  At ten years old, she returned to live with her Mother.  Her step father tried to rape her, and as Rita refused to allow him, he threw her out of the house.  At twelve years old, whilst she was visiting her Mother, she was raped by the Father of her step father.  Rita reported him but they did not believe her.  It was then that she fled desperately to the streets.  There she met other young people who were sleeping in an abandoned house, with whom she lived for a while, and learnt to take drugs.

Her family never concerned themselves as to her whereabouts.  She never learnt to read or write.  She remained living at the streets.   At thirteen years old she was raped by two men.  Finally, at the age of fifteen she entered the community of Casa Alianza, where she began to prepare for a technical course, she was enrolled on an accelerated education class, and was offered psychological treatment for the sexual abuse that she had suffered; finally she was prepared in order to achieve an independent life.  On leaving Casa Alianza she returned to live with her sister.

Recently she was killed in a marginalized area of Guatemala City by unknown gunmen who shot her to death.  She was nineteen years old.   At the same time, they shot her six month old son and her partner.  All of them died.   

Rita was, from a very young age, a child at high social risk.  Precisely because she grew up in misery, deprived of the minimal conditions required for a dignified life, she was vulnerable to the possibility of becoming a street child, and ending her life as a victim of violence.

In the case of Rita, as with hundreds of street children, the State failed to fulfill its responsibility to protect and help such children and young people, as much in their right to life as in their rights as children, hindering them from the full and harmonious development of their personalities, in spite of the fact that all children have the right to live and be cared for and supported by public powers in order that they develop to their own benefit and the benefit of the society to which they belong.

For 25 years Casa Alianza has provided integral attention to children such as Rita, offering them the opportunity to have a dignified life.  At the same time we work to defend the human rights of all children demanding that the State of Guatemala develops action plans to benefit childhood and youth.  We need your help in order to continue our work.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

comunicacion2@casaalianza.org.gt