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 News from Around the Americas | April 2007 
Child Bullfighter's Goring Sparks Controversy in Spain
 Sinikka Tarvainen - dpa
| | Jairo Miguel, a 14-year-old Spanish bullfighter, performs in Aguascalientes, Mexico Sunday April 15, 2007. Miguel came an inch from likely death when the bull rushed him at top speed and lifted him on its horns. (AP/Periodico Hidrocalido) |
Madrid, Spain - When Spanish bullfighter Jairo Miguel was lifted into the air by the horns of a 430-kilo bull recently, the Mexican spectators gasped.
Not only did a horn penetrate close to the torero's heart and break several of his ribs, it almost cost him his life.
The scene was made even more poignant by the fact that the slender body soaked in blood belonged to a child only 14 years old.
"Dad, I'm dying," the young bullfighter screamed to his manager- father as he was being rushed to hospital from the bullring in Aguascalientes northwest of Mexico City.
Jairo Miguel was just one among many Spanish fledgling bullfighters to cross over to Mexico to evade a ban on child toreros in their own country, where 16 is the minimum age to face a bull.
Mexico, however, has had bullfighters as young as eight years old.
Miguel's goring has sparked a debate in Spain about bullfighting by children, which some see as a form of child abuse, while others compare it to the training of any other elite athletes who start at a young age.
"Bullfighting, like tennis or all sports, is learned best as a child," Mexican fighting bull breeders' representative Jorge de Haro argued.
"A child is not conscious of the danger or risk," he added. "The younger they are, the better bullfighters they make."
The Spanish authorities disagree with such views.
"I am appalled," said Arturo Canalda, an ombudsman for minors in Madrid. "It is madness to put a 14-year-old in front of an animal weighing 400 or 500 kilos."
The age limit of 16 is sometimes circumvented in Spain.
Boys younger than 16 fight young calves at bullfighting schools, which call such exercises "practical classes" instead of bullfighting classes to get around the law, the daily El Pais reported.
Jairo Miguel's father, former bullfighter Antonio Sanchez Caceres, says his son has performed 17 times in Spanish bullrings, with the authorities either turning a blind eye or imposing heavy fines.
Those in favour of lowering the age limit point out that many of Spain's top bullfighters began their careers in Mexico, Colombia or Venezuela at an age at which it would have been illegal in Spain.
Spanish bullfighting schools are swarming with boys dreaming of the money and fame enjoyed by a handful of top matadors, who have a celebrity status comparable to movie stars.
One of Spain's top names, El Juli, first became known as a child prodigy of bullfighting at age 16.
"No children are exploited in a spectacle where precocious callings have always existed," commentator Paco Aguado wrote in the bullfighting magazine Toros.
Jairo Miguel's goring was "an unbeatable excuse for the enemies" of bullfighting who criticize "a spectacle which is too tough for the hypocritical sentimentality that is being imposed in the society of our time," he added.
Miguel's father Antonio says his son simply has bullfighting "in the blood."
Some bullfighting professionals, however, support the age limit.
"A 14-year-old should not be in front of a bull," said Jose Conde of a bullfighting school in the southern town of Algeciras.
"I lost my childhood," said well-known Seville bullfighter Espartaco, who launched his career at the same age as Jairo Miguel in Latin America. "But I did it to fulfill my dream, which was to be a torero." |
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