Social/Political Problems in BA

Last night I went to my internship class. Since the internship is categorized as "Service Learning" we talk about Poverty in Buenos Aires and Argentina. It's interesting not only to learn about their political system and ways of dealing with poverty and other social problems, but then to think about how it is in the US. One friend said that he never appreciated stability until he got to Argentina. Of course the systems in the US are not nearly perfect, but there are some very fundamental steps we have taken that I am now starting to appreciate: we generally follow rules. (I'll get back to this)

What I found out:
- There are 4000 kids (5-17) that enter Buenos Aires everyday. A large number of them in situations of poverty (without parents, hungry, taken advantage of, etc.)

-There are lists and lists of parents who would like to adopt these kids, but the beaurocracy takes 7 or 8 years to get through in order to successfully adopt, by which point the family no longer wants the child. (Um, this seems very clear to me, there is way to much beaurocracy and something has to be done. The first thing I would do in office is slash the beaurocracy and stop shooting myself in the foot with this poverty situation, claro no?)

-Since adopting a child is nearly impossible, there is a black market trafficking of children in Misiones (north near Catarratas) where some families go to get kids.

-Raping of children is a major problem partly as a result of the machismo culture

-Buenos Aires is known as a "turist" destination for undereage prostitution

-Abortion is illegal.

-The only time a child may have an abortion is if he/she is violated and is "mentally unable" to raise the child. In this situation, a court judge must give the person permission for the abortion. In a famous case in one province of Argentina, the family helped the child go through all this process legally to get the abortion, and the judge took 7 months to finish teh case. At this point an abortion was impossible.

-Many people die from "abortos caseros" shady abortions out of a hospital.

-In the past, starving children were sentenced by a judge to a jail where they were locked up and given food. These kids were put in the same place where kids who murdered and commited crimes were put. A new law changed the rules, so that kids aren't put in jail with murderers when there only problem is that they don't have food, BUT no one created a new place to put them, so the kids are still going to jail...


There's more, but I'll stop at that. The crazy thing is that we were learning about all the laws that make changes for the better but nothing changes in reality. Our teachers (we have two, that work in social organizations in BA) explained to us that Argentina's laws are that of a very developed country, but nothing happens in reality. The discrepency between what the rules are and how people act is astonishing.

I then starting thinking about why we follow laws in the US (some of us, but a decent percent compared to Argentina) and why someone wouldn't follow laws. One component I came up with is that in the US we live in a culture full of rules (often times, in my opinion, too many). Many kids in the US grow up in families that are encouraged to give their kids boundries, (I see kids here apeshit on the subway or in public spaces, eating off the floor, licking cans in the grocery store, meanwhile their parents look on and don't say a thing) and schools that are chock-full of rules. Not only are there rules, there are consequences; detention, lower grades, missing recess, time-out, etc. Somehow this socialization makes many of us rule-conscious.

In argentina, from my short experience here so far, there don't seem to be as many rules. I don't know about lower levels of school, but UBA, the university I go to, is a free-for-all. It's my little hypothesis that this free-for-all culture has something to do wit hthe fact that this country has developed laws that few people care to follow. I'm sure there are millinos of other factors and influences, but I think this is an important cultural one.

Hasta luego,
Kati

P.S. There are pros and cons of everything- I don't mean to bash on the rule-less culture here, I find it often times liberating in contrast with the stressful structured life of the US.