At 12 years old, the New York City girl is already an orphan, a rape victim and a mother. Now, two days after her newborn son was rescued from the maw of a trash compactor, she has become something more -- a symbol of the violence that stalks the young in some corners of this city.

"She never had no chance," said a neighbor, who, like most others who were interviewed yesterday, spoke only on the condition of anonymity. "Most of us don't expect her to recover from this. She has gone through too much too young."

At 4, a fire killed both her parents, and she passed into the care of an aunt, whom her neighbors in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn described as emotionally unstable. Drugs and alcohol invaded the home, the neighbors said. The girl was consigned to a class for slow learners and faithfully attended each day, perhaps her only triumph in a world where staying in school is a Herculean task.

As if to punctuate the disorder of a life as troubled as it has been short, the girl's 21-year-old cousin and adoptive brother, Clarence Perry, was arrested yesterday as he threatened to fling himself off the roof of the housing- project building where they live. He told the police that he was the father of the baby. He was charged with rape.