Police corruption

A 15 year-old girl drifts the streets of Otavalo at two in the morning having sniffed her third dose of glue in the last 24 hours. Her eyes stare up and then down, floating in the boundaries of conscious and unconscious. The arms flop down her sides and from time to time she has to lean against street lamps to stay upright. A ‘gringo’, as the tourists are known, would probably cross the street to avoid any kind of contact. There is something intimidating about her, a kind of aura which suggests a menacing trait. To the locals, though, Maria is just another kid, no taller than 4ft. If you weren’t told, you’d guess she was as young as nine.

But Maria has three children all under three. There is no clue who the father or fathers might be. And there is nothing strange about that in the streets of Otavalo either.
This small town in the highlands of Ecuador is full of multiple teenage pregnancies and child drug abuse. The reason: Police corruption.

A former policeman, who left the force soon after joining, said that over half of the police force is corrupt. He explained there are many forms of corruption including ´fake fines´ for tourists and constant drug abuse by the people that are supposed to stop it. These can be as high as $100 USD. Police run protection rackets, can be paid off for a price, and people just hope they have enough in their wallet, house or bank account to avoid going to jail.

The most harmful form of corruption is, however, an unwritten convention with thieves. Once a thief is let out of jail, they become ‘friends’ with the police, meaning they can continue to commit crimes, which can involve both physical violence and theft, without being prosecuted. In return, police will ask for information on other misdemeanours in the town.

This in itself is a big problem for the citizens here. “You can be walking around and there can be the guy that mugged you last week,” one resident said.

Ultimately, what appears to be a helpful way for the police to get ‘the bigger players’ then hits other parts of society like Maria. Children who have been raped, kicked out of home for financial reasons and are now homeless, provide the thieves with easy targets. The thieves, many of whom are homeless too, also provide shelter for homeless children in the main market square of the town. Here, these adults are only too happy to hand out glue and harder drugs including crack cocaine to children who are still under 10.

The reason so many sniff glue in the first place is that it keeps them warm, keeps them silent and will give the illusion of being ‘full’, so looking for food is cut out of the equation.

The police continue to allow all this to happen because they know that information will continue to flow from such an environment. Only if ‘unregulated’ child drug abuse is seen — outside the thief/police informer system — is any action taken to stop it. Inevitably, the child will not have sufficient funds to pay off the policeman, and it is then thrown in jail for up to 18 months without trial, depending on the seriousness of the crime was. Only if money is forthcoming can this process be short-circuited.

Jail, of course is gruesome place, with police behaviour still more corrupt away from the public eye. Sasha, an American resident living in Otavalo, was only 14 when she was put in jail for a month for having seven ounces of marijuana on her person. She said that ‘one policeman grabbed my face and kissed me. I turned and went back to my room only to be told that it was a normal occurrence in prison.’ Telling her mother of the incident, the policeman was moved and eventually fired.
‘But sex between policemen and 12 year-old girls does happen,’ continues Sasha. ‘A lot of kids, who get put in there for smoking crack can get it easier inside too. Visitors don’t get searched.’ The cells, which measure 6x6 foot, hold two or three prisoners and can be locked in there for days at a time with the prisoners receiving no exercise. On occasions when the police arrive back late from duty on a weekend they will open up all the cells and have, what Sasha calls, a house party.

Sasha ends every sentence with a shrill, nervous laugh. Her left arm is scarred and scratched where she has been cutting herself. It looks as if someone has scraped a cheese grater all over the skin. It is a terrible sight and the 17 year old is keen not to go into any more detail.

You find all sorts of characters in jail as you do in the UK. One boy, Alex, whom Sasha became friendly with during her time in jail, was asked by his father to smuggle drugs south from Columbia to Ecuador. Only 12 at the time, Alex will be staying in jail until he is 18. With no education and ultimately a horrifying time inside there is no telling what kind of life he will lead.

Drug trafficking is dealt with a fierce hand in South America. Should you get caught with cocaine, there is an automatic one year sentence assuming you get a trial straight away.

It is, however, an appealing way of life. The average wage here is 72p a day. The minimum national wage is 50p an hour. When you deal with cocaine, you are talking thousands of pounds a week, depending on how well you are known. You are respected, well liked and have ‘street cred’. It is no wonder that people are pressurised into dealing and why you see families ask their children to smuggle drugs (essentially income), into the country.

As for Maria, her children and the other children who have turned to drugs as their comfort, a place away from the world, hope has all but gone. Their brains, by now, will have been corroded by the daily fumes of glue and crack.

Lacking charities to take these children into care, there is general consensus that these children cannot be helped. One middle aged man from America, Stephen, tried to help them but failed. Having seen the state of affairs, he gave them food and a place to sleep every night. But the children were already addicts to the drugs that had destroyed them. Soon after setting up shelter and regular food, he left the country and left the children to battle the elements for themselves.