Ecuador's chicas...

Girls in the streets of Quito work as ambulatory vendors on in markets selling vegetables, fruit or candy.Like their brothers, girls spend an average of 10 hours each day on the street. In addition to their street work, however, girls have an additional six hours of work at home caring for their younger siblings and doing housework. Girls are also more vulnerable than their male siblings in terms of sexual abuse, incest, teenage pregnancy, physical abuse, a higher probability of being forced to work, discrimination at school and in the work place, and extremely low self-esteem. Centro de la Niña Trabajadora (known by its initials in Spanish as CENIT) is a non-governmental, not-for-profit organization founded in 1991 by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd. CENIT uses educational and vocational programs to help working girls and their families overcome grinding poverty and improve the quality of their lives. The result is generations of working women with the education and skills to form healthy families that contribute to a more just and productive society.