45 not receive training on how to deal with these children’”. Lastly, the State “acknowledged that 84 children had been murdered in the first three months of 1996 and that, according to available information, there had only been seven [convictions]”. The Commission asserted that this declaration was a unilateral acknowledgement of facts generating international responsibility. 184. The Commission described the three child victims of the facts of this case as persons who lived in extremely precarious socio-economic conditions and who fought to survive alone and fearful of a society that did not include them, but rather excluded them. Furthermore, it stated that, as the State abstained from taking effective measures to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators, it exacerbated the risk of violations of the rights of “street children” in general, and the victims of this case, in particular. 185. The Commission stated that the reason for Article 19 of the Convention arose from the vulnerability of children and their incapacity to personally ensure the respect of their rights. It also declared that while the consequent protection responsibilities correspond to the family in principle, State measures are necessary in the case of at risk children. According to the Commission, this special State obligation encompasses the protection of a wide range of social, economic, civil and political interests of the child. 186. The State did not refer to this issue in its final arguments (supra, paras. 67 and 68). 187. Article 19 of the Convention stipulates that “[e]very minor child has the right to the measures of protection required by his condition as a minor on the part of his family, society, and the State”. 188. Article 19 of the American Convention does not define what is meant by “child”. However, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (Article 1) considers every human being who has not attained 18 years of age to be a child, “unless, by virtue of an applicable law, he shall have attained his majority previously”. According to the Guatemalan legislation in force at the time of the facts of this case, those who had not attained 18 years of age were also minors. Using this criteria, only three of the victims, Julio Roberto Caal Sandoval, Jovito Josué Juárez Cifuentes and Anstraum Villagrán Morales, were children. However, in this judgment, the Court is using the colloquial expression “street children” to refer to the five victims in this case, who lived on the streets, in a risk situation. 189. In this judgment, the Court has also recognized as a notorious and public fact that, at the time the facts of this case occurred, there was a systematic practice of aggression against ‘street children’ in Guatemala carried out by members of State security forces; this included threats, persecution, torture, forced disappearance and homicide (supra, paras. 59.c and 79). 190. Based on the different reports on the issue of “street children” in Guatemala, and the characteristics and circumstances of this case, the Court believes that the events that culminated in the death of the minors, Caal Sandoval, Juárez Cifuentes and Villagrán Morales, are linked to the prevailing pattern of violence against “street children” in Guatemala at the time the facts occurred.