Child Porn: Unpunished Crime
The accusation of a network that uses Guatemalan adolescents in pornographic videos has provoked a great scandal in this capital, but the problem is more generalized and deeper than it seems.

The adolescent victims are high school students from the eastern department of Jutiapa, border with El Salvador.

Psychologist Berta Lidia Barco, expert in childhood and women´s affairs, directed a project on this issue several years ago, led by the International Labor Organization, which proved the existence of these networks in Jutiapa, Izabal and the country"s other departments.

Trade of sexual exploitation in children and adolescents satisfies one people or group"s desire, in exchange for cash or in goods.

UNICEF official Dora Ciusti said the minors involved need direct attention because rapes leave deep consequences, like venereal diseases, AIDS, unwanted pregnancies, drug addition and alcoholism.

For both experts, the essence of the problem is in the country"s legal gaps, which block severe punishment for the crimes mentioned above.

Although authorities could not locate the place of the production of videos, or chiefs of this dirty business, the police does not rule out that it is a group linked to an international network with

operation base in Spain and Germany.

Guatemala has ratified since 1990 the Convention on the Children´s Rights, but failed in its attempts to create a law to protect it.