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Being young here is
almost a miracle
is to search for opportunities.
This is Milton, a former gang member living in Cazuca
a slum near Colombia's capital of Bogota.
Young people hang out in corners
some do drugs
the paramilitary comes on motorcycles
and kills them all.
Milton, who is twenty-six, knows this reality really well.
His membership in a gang and use of drugs made him a target
of what is crudely known in Colombia as social cleansing
where young men or women are assassinated
simply for being undesireables.
The reason is that they think
these kids are bad for the community
and they think they are doing a favor to the community
removing the rotten apples
which are youth who steal and do drugs.
So among those people there's a plot
to finance and get rid of youth.
Being young is criminalized
it's not only criminalized
but penalized
and it's penalized with the death penalty.
Lilia Solano is the Executive Director of Proyecto Justicia y Vida
a human rights organization that works in Cazuca.
A report they wrote revealed that between 2002 and 2006
approximately 600 youths were subject to selective murders
in Cazuca and a neighboring problem-area called Ciudad Bolivar.
The paramilitary controls youth in Cazuca in various ways.
One of those ways is imposing an order
which is
I'm in charge here because I have weapons
and because I have economic control.
So the ground is set for social cleansing
saying that kids who play arcade games
who like to dance or rap
are going against the order that is established.
But what's behind this is: 'If you don't obey I'll kill you.'
Social cleansing has been around Cazuca for the last decade
and it's cyclical with a resurgence this year.
Most people living in Cazuca attribute this kind of violence
to the Self Defense Forces of Colombia known as the AUC
a paramilitary group that officially demobilized starting in 2003.
Former members have regrouped and continue to carry out the same violence.
There are illegal organizations that intimidate people
and that make a tremendous effort to control the territory, its residents,
and to not allow the government to have a presence in this area.
Fernando Escobar is the municipal human rights represetantive for Soacha
the municipality in which Cazuca is located.
He has spoken out against the presence of armed groups in Cazuca
which has resulted in death threats for him and his office.
It's very hard for young people in Cazuca
to gather with friends
because there's a culture of fear
because they can't be sure they will not be involved in an unwanted situation.
And Cazuca with a population of approximately seventy-thousand residents
is a place especially vulnerable to violence.
The subdivision number four in Cazuca is
one of the most depressed areas in the municipality of Soacha.
*** Morales works for Corporacion Infancia y Desarrollo
an NGO operating at the heart of Cazuca.
Most of the kids here come from families that are displaced by ongoing fights
between the army, guerrillas and paramilitary
forcing them out of their homes in the countryside to the big cities.
Cazuca's cheap rent and proximity to Bogota's job market
have turned it into one of the biggest recipients of displaced people in Soacha.
It's very hard for a displaced family to find a place in Cazuca
because there's barely any government presence.
There are low levels of coverage in education
and of health
there are many people living here
it's constantly becoming populated
so it's very hard to find a suitable place for the displaced people that arrive here.
As the displacement crisis seems to reach no end
the situation of young people in Cazuca isn't getting any better either.
Almost half of its population is under twenty-six years of age
with little education
and few employable skills.
Many already have a family to care for, perpetuating the cycle of poverty.
Conditions for our youth in Ciudad Bolivar and Cazuca are very precarious.
They have few opportunities
and as the area is stigmatized
it becomes harder for them to get a job.
If you deprive people of the opportunities to have a future
you are forcing an entire community
to live in primitive conditions
and when you live in primitive conditions
you accept that the law of the fittest is:
'If I have to kill to survive, I will kill you.'
However, there are individuals breaking the cycle
like Milton who turned his life around.
Since I saw how they were killing people around me
and with having my first kid, I have two now
my life started to change.
Milton is now a project coordinator at Ahmsa
an international organization working on solutions to alleviate poverty
in places like Cazuca.
Many from my generation have been killed.
In recent years police presence has increased in Cazuca
and there aren't as many murders of teens as before.
But violence and threats towards youth
remain at a critical level.
Young people in Cazuca face as uncertain a future as ever
and are only hoping for a shot at life.