Living in Peru : your everyday companion

(LIP-ir) -- In an effort to protect Peru's children and adolescents from picking up gambling habits at an early age, Congress has approved a project that could ban slot machines for children in the country.

The project proposes to prohibit the possession, use, manufacture, import, assembly and sale of slot machines for children in Peru.

The president of the Foreign Trade and Tourism Commission, Alda Lazo de Hornung has proposed that establishments with such machines should be fined and the device should be confiscated. She also suggested the establishment be permanently shut down if the incident occurred a second time.

Lazo explained that minors did not have the full legal capacity to make decisions with respect to their civil rights and affirmed that the World Health Organization considered gambling addiction a vice and a psychological illness, grouping it with other mental disorders.

The legislator stated that gambling addiction was increasing in Peru's youth, stating that there were approximately 1,500 slot machines for minors in Lima alone.

According to Expreso daily, psychiatrists and psychotherapists have stated that gambling is a new addiction in Peru, explaining that its treatment is very difficult.