Honduras: Poverty, Drugs, and Street Kids

Honduras faces severe economic and social challenges that disproportionately affect children. Over 60% of Hondurans live in poverty, and many families struggle to provide for their children. Extreme poverty forces hundreds of thousands of kids into adult roles. 500,000 Honduran children work due to family need, and another 500,000 children do not work or attend school at all. These circumstances leave many Honduran children vulnerable. Poverty and insecurity push thousands of kids into precarious situations.

Street Children and Homeless Kids

Many Honduran children end up homeless. Research suggests there are tens of thousands of street children in Honduras. These homeless kids survive through begging, scavenging, stealing, and informal labor, often digging through trash to feed themselves. They live day-to-day with no adult caregiver and are exposed to violence and exploitation. With a national poverty rate >60%, many children simply have nowhere else to go.

To address this crisis, a small number of NGOs and shelters provide care. But the scale of the problem is huge. They help about 3,400 kids out of the estimated 20,000 population.

Drugs and Gangs: Trafficking Through Honduras

Honduras is a major transit point for international drug trafficking and drug flows are deeply embedded in the country’s social fabric. Since the 1970s Honduras has been part of the cocaine route to the United States, and in the past two decades hundreds of tons of cocaine per year pass through Honduras. Honduran security forces report that domestic coca cultivation is spreading: In 2024 the military destroyed coca crops in 16 Honduran municipalities (up from 9 in 2023) and raided 81 plantations. These two departments (Atlántida and Olancho) where coca is most common also have the country’s highest homicide rates and powerful crime clans, demonstrating the link between drug routes and violence.

Honduras now grapples with both massive flows of cocaine and growing local cultivation. Nearly half of northern Central America has climate perfect for coca growth, giving traffickers incentive to expand production closer to home. This entrenches the drug economy with local transportista groups coordinating shipments and often paying local people to help run the routes.

Substance Abuse and Youth

At the same time, drug use among Honduran youth is alarmingly high. 73.5% of Honduran students (age 15–19) have tried illegal drugs. Cocaine in particular, often in the form of crack, has seeped into impoverished communities. In street populations, crack use is especially common as children seek cheap highs to numb hunger and fear.

Drug trafficking also fuels gangs that prey on youth. Traffickers recruit poor villagers to run airstrips and checkpoints, and local “transportista” networks often include ex-gang members or corrupt officials. This means vulnerable youth can be drawn into the trade. If captured, street kids might avoid prosecution due to their age. Traffickers see children as “forms of cheap labor” who can more easily evade harsh penalties.

Taken together, these factors create a vicious cycle: poverty and violence push children to the streets, where drug use and gang recruitment become survival strategies. Government efforts to curb trafficking (police raids, interdictions) are hampered by low resources and corruption. Child abuse and exploitation go almost entirely unpunished. For many Honduran kids, the combination of extreme poverty, gang presence, and ubiquitous drugs makes street life a deadly gamble.

These figures show the magnitude of the problem and why organizations like Project Gerson are needed. They underscore that Honduras’s street-child crisis is not isolated but tied to deep poverty and a booming drug economy.