Mexico's Homeless 'Rat Kids' Sniff Glue to Forget the Things They Do for Food Alasdair Baverstock - Mailonline
go to original November 20, 2015

 "I have had to do things I never knew existed," said Donny, who has had to sell his body to 'perverts' for money. (DailyMail.com)

Proudly bearing the label 'Rat Kid', Gustavo has lived in Mexico City's parks and sewers since he was just eight years old, when his 'evil stepmother' kicked him out of the family home.

Now 18, he says the past decade has taught him the skills required to survive on the tough streets of Mexico's capital.

The young man currently makes $10 a day performing on the city's metro, prostrating his naked torso across shards of broken glass and then asking for donations from horrified passersby.

"Staying alive in this town means putting your body on the line," he told MailOnline, speaking from the encampment where he and 14 other abandoned children now live.

"I've done everything from washing windscreens to selling my body to perverts," he says, inhaling deeply from a solvent soaked rag in his clenched fist. "We do whatever it takes to make a dollar."

Gustavo, who lives by the motto "you can never trust anyone", is one of over 15,000 homeless under the age of 18 living on the streets of Mexico City.

Left destitute by the death or abandonment of their parents, children from across the republic make their way to the capital in search of a better life. But when the city of 24 million people turns a blind eye to their plight, many end up living in the shadows.

Read the rest at Daily Mail

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