12 Year Old Drug Smuggler
How children are entrapped in the drug trade
Cochabamba, Bolivia
Claudia
Anita
Bolivia is the poorest country in South America, but it
is the the
world's third largest cocaine producer.
The Chapare jungle is the heart of coca plant growing in Bolivia and,
not surprisingly, is also the main cocaine producing area in the region.
The indigenous Indians have been cultivating the coca leaf for
centuries. Whilst cocaine is illegal, coca leaf is not. They sell it so
it can be chewed, brewed in tea and used in medicine. The cocaleros did
not know how to produce cocaine from the coca leaf until outsiders came
in and showed them how to do it and how to make money from it.
Claudia was 12 years old when she boarded a bus, deep in the Bolivian
jungle. She was on her way to the local town, Cochabamba. Claudia's bus
was stopped at checkpoint Locatel, high up in the Andes mountains.
Strapped around her body was a kilo of white paste - cocaine, fresh from
a jungle factory.
Claudia recalls: "The first time was when a man came to the school
gate. He asked some girls if they were interested. They said no! I
needed the money for my school stuff, so I said yes, I'll do it. I
smuggled drugs with my friend Anita. I did it two or three times, always
with the same person."
On August 11th 2005, Claudia and Anita were waiting for a bus in the
Chapare jungle. They were on their way to meet the fat man in the town
of Cochabamba. Before the bus can reach Cochabamba it must pass through
a number of checkpoints. Locatel, in the Andes, is one of the busiest.
It separates the coca growing Chapare jungle from the town of Cochabamba.
At 5pm the Cochabamba Express pulled into the checkpoint. Lieutenant
Pinto was on duty that day and he remembers: "We carried out a
routine inspection. The bus driver told us that two kids had got on at a
town in the middle of the Chapare jungle. I approached the girls and
asked where they had come from and who they were with. They were
nervous, so nervous they couldn't even tell me where they were
going to in Cochabamba."
Lieutenant Pinto
He soon discovered that Claudia had a package containing a white
paste strapped around her midriff and Anita had a similar package. The
girls were taken to the Bolivian anti-narcotics base in the heart of the
Chapare jungle.
In Bolivia, children over the age of twelve are accountable for their
crimes. Anita was ten when they were caught, she was let off. Claudia
was twelve. She was found guilty and sentenced to one year in a juvenile
detention centre. The fat man from Cochabamba was never found.
Claudia's parents have each spent time in prison for drug smuggling.
In Bolivia children often go to live with their parents in jail. Claudia
lived in San Sebastian jail, with her mother Elizabeth, when she was
just six.
Eight years is the minimum sentence for anyone caught smuggling drugs
in Bolivia. The maximum is twenty five years. Suspects are guilty until
proven innocent and parole is complicated. Children over the age of
twelve can be locked up. This is law 1008, passed in the 1980s under US
pressure.
Almost half of the people in Bolivian prisons are inside under law
1008. In San Sebastian, close to the coca growing Chapare jungle, the
figure is over 70%.
CREDITS: All of the above information was taken from the BBC's
"This World documentary series.
