Human Trafficking in [Mongolia] [other countries]Street Children in [Mongolia Child Prostitution in [Mongolia] [other countries] |
Prevalence, Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children State of Mongolia [ Country-by-Country
Reports ] The State of Mongolia [map] is a republic
located in N central Asia and is bordered by The Government of Mongolia and UNICEF are
cooperating to promote and cultivate effective partnerships for children to
contribute to the vitality of the Global Movement for Children. Emergency preparedness is an integrated
component of the strategy.
Preparedness includes support for a more effective early warning
system and contingency planning to avert the disruption of health, nutrition,
sanitation, hygiene and basic education services for children. |
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FEATURED ARTICLES *** Street Children Remain Neglected Her name is Narantuya, which roughly translates as bright sunshine. Nara is 10 years old and the sole guardian of her little sister Moogii. These sisters spend their days rummaging through piles of rubbish. They look for enough food to last through the day, wandering from place to place, sometimes walking across the whole city in search of food. They share this daily task with homeless drunks and street dogs, all searching through the same piles of scraps. They make ends meet (barely) by begging, collecting bottles that they sell to recycling plants and anything else that they can scavenge that might have some monetary value. Mongolians suffer wrath of winter blight Among these migrants are a growing number of runaway and abandoned children, some as young as 5. An estimated 3,000-4,000 children live on the streets of Ulan Bator, the capital. They are known as "sewer kids". They join gangs of youths that claim underground sewers, drainpipes, stairwells and ditches as their refuge sites. They shine shoes, steal food, forage through rubbish, fight for territory, suffer servitude by homeless adults, sell their bodies -- or face the danger of being kidnapped by child traffickers. Homeless Kids Fight For Survival Underground Menaced by Sinister Jobless Adults ``Not many grown-ups knew of this location,'' says Sukhbold, a 14-year-old who gulps down the soup offered by staff members of the Verbist Care Center, a Catholic child welfare organization. ``But recently, grown-ups have been coming here and beating up the children or demanding cash from them.'' According to local police, unemployed homeless adults are increasingly ordering street children to steal money or bring food. The children are assaulted or thrown out of into the cold if they refuse to obey. ***
ARCHIVES *** www.ecpat.net/A4A_2005/PDF/EAP/Global_Monitoring_Report-MONGOLIA.pdf The study Perception, Trends, and
Nature of Child Prostitution, conducted in 2001 in Ulaanbaatar, the capital
city, with a sample group of 1,193 children from grades 7 to 10, indicated
that 42 per cent of girls engaged in prostitution are aged between 17 and 18,
while 57 per cent are aged between 13 and 16. The majority of these girls (70
per cent) are school dropouts and around 10 per cent are homeless. Most of
the girls engaged in prostitution (85 per cent) live underground in the
city’s heating ducts or on the streets. Commercial sexual exploitation of
children (CSEC) in Mongolia is closely linked with the problem of street
children, who are exposed to various forms of violence, sexual abuse and
commercial sexual exploitation, including involvement in the production of
pornography. Although there is no reliable data on the numbers of street
children in the country, it is estimated to be between one and 4,000 (post
1990, i.e. after the end of the Soviet occupation); 64 per cent are aged
between 9 and 14. The majority are found in
Ulaanbaatar, but they can also be found to a lesser extent in other large
cities such as Dornod and Zamiin
Uud. Factors pushing children into
prostitution include sexual abuse, poor living onditions,
and being lured, forced or influenced by others. The high rates of divorce
and domestic violence (often accentuated by alcohol abuse) also lead many
children to run away from abusive home environments to find themselves in
highly vulnerable situations. At the end of the Soviet occupation, Mongolia
experienced a severe economic collapse, but the various changes in the
country’s economic structure were not accompanied by social welfare programmes targeting children and young people. - sccp UNICEF - The Big Picture U.S.
Dept of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - UNICEF estimated that 36.6 percent of children in Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 CHILDREN - Although society has a long
tradition of raising children in a communal manner, societal and familial
changes have orphaned many children. The government was more willing than in
the past to admit the extent of the problem, but it lacked the resources to
improve the welfare of children who have become victims. NGOs continued to
assist orphaned and abandoned children. The government did not publish
statistics on street children; however, the 2002 census identified
approximately 1,300 homeless youths between 7 and 18 years of age. Of those,
840 lived in shelters provided by 21 children's centers sponsored by
international NGOs. Groups working in the field disagreed on the number of
street children, but they estimated that there were as many as three
thousand. Female street children, who
accounted for one‑third of all street children, sometimes faced sexual
abuse. The government established the National Committee for Children to
address this and other child welfare problems. The government supported two
government-funded but privately owned and administered shelters, one for
children from birth to the age 3 and the other for children from ages 3 to
16. While these facilities received some government funding, it was
inadequate, and foreign aid was needed to sustain the orphanages. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 2005 [49] The Committee is deeply
concerned at the persistent high rate of poverty in the State party. The
Committee notes that as a consequence of increasing migration from rural
areas poverty is becoming more urbanized and this change has created a range
of new social issues, such as children living on the streets. While noting,
inter alia, the adoption of, in 2004, "Money for hope" benefit
system for children living in families with a minimum income and the State
party's efforts to implement poverty reduction plan, programs and projects,
the Committee reiterates its concern at the high number of children, who do
not enjoy the right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate
housing and other basic services, both in urban and rural areas of the
country. [62] The Committee regrets that
the State party report did not provide it with adequate information about the
situation of street children. While noting with appreciation the
establishment of child centers for children living in the street, the
Committee is concerned at the increasing number of street children living in
very harsh conditions and that the causes leading to this phenomenon are
often abusive family situations. According to the Law on Temporary Detention
of Children without Supervision adopted in July 1994, a runaway child can be
detained up to one week. The Committee is concerned that the State party's
domestic legislation does not remain in full conformity with the principles
and provision of the Convention in this respect. Furthermore, the Committee
notes with concern that the negative public attitudes and prejudices against
street children exacerbate their difficult situation. www.globalskolen.no/view.cgi?&link_id=0.1503498&session_id=0 HOW DOES THE STREET CHILDREN
SURVIVE? - The street
children survive by holding together. They help each other and they also
support each other. They also help each other get warm. They share all stuff
together and help each other collecting bottles and cans for food. HOW THE OLDER GROUPS TREATS THE
YOUNGER GROUPS - It
is the older kids that rule the streets of street children. They steal money
from what the younger groups have collected. They beat them up and also make
many scars on their arms of the younger groups. Sometimes they kill one of
the members in the younger groups. All the young groups fear that they will
get killed. So the younger groups tries to escape
each time the older groups come. WHAT DO THEY DO IF THEIR HEALTH
GETS BAD? - If one of
the groups gets sick or ill they try to help him/her. They share the food they
get with him and give a bit more food to him/her. They always try to keep him
alive so they don’t loose him/her. They collect also money from bottles and
cans so that he can go to the doctor to see how sick he is. Few times they
try to reunite him/her with his/her parents so they can help him/her survive.
If he/she gets really sick they hope that he/she will survive so they don’t
loose a member of the group. When he/she gets better again they treat him/her
the same way as they treated him/her before he got sick. CITY
OF LOST CHILDREN: Driven down www.dailypilot.com/articles/2008/08/01/topstory/dpt-mongoliashort080208.txt In the words of Treptow, “An enduring legacy of the communist downfall is
the phenomenon of Mongolian street children … sent to the city by destitute
parents in the countryside. Thousands ended up homeless, abandoned by parents
who could no longer care for them or relatives who barely knew them.
Alcoholic fathers and abusive families led many children to flee on their
own.” The children live in manholes
littered with rat feces and cockroaches. They rummage through trash for
scraps of food. Many are malnourished or sick from eating bad meat. Others,
as young as 7, drink. The girls live in fear of sexual assaults. Hope is an
abstract in this underground society. But they also sing, laugh, look
out for each other and fight with remarkable resilience and resourcefulness
to live to see another day. www.dailypilot.com/articles/2009/03/23/special_reports/mongolia/doc486d590e8f054181571157.txt Aizam’s parents divorced when he was 10.
His mother remarried, but her husband threw the boy out on the street because
he didn’t want a child who was not his own. Aizam
returned to his father’s door, but no one answered. Eventually he joined a group of
children who lived in a manhole between a music kiosk and a movie theater. In
the seven years since, he has seen his father several times walking down the
street with his new wife. They stroll past and ignore him, as if he is not
there. City
of Lost Children: Part 2 - A first-hand look at kids in manholes www.dailypilot.com/articles/2009/03/23/special_reports/mongolia/doc486d5992d5d7e250885083.txt Davga says the stomach pain is probably
food poisoning from bad meat scavenged from trash. She checks her legs and
finds an open, circular wound about 2 inches wide. It’s from burning herself
on a pipe that runs through the hole she lives in. The injuries are so common
that Byamba didn’t bother to mention it. Davga cleans her wound and gives her medicine and fresh
food. “Byarlalaa!”
the girl shouts ⎯ thank you! ⎯ as she
skips off and disappears into her hole. Word spreads that the clinic is
here. Children appear in bunches, and soon the truck is elbow-to-elbow with
excited kids. It looks like recess at an elementary school, except that some
of these kids could pick your pockets in five seconds flat. In 15 minutes the
50 sack lunches the team prepared have been handed out, and the children
disperse into the night. City
of Lost Children: Part 3 - 'You are a whore.' Soyolerdene
punches him in the face www.dailypilot.com/articles/2009/03/23/special_reports/mongolia/doc486d59fb211d4832590405.txt Otgonbayar claims to be 10 but the others
say he is 7. He makes considerably more money than the rest because his
small, vulnerable appearance elicits more sympathy ⎯ and therefore more
money ⎯ when he begs. He spends his cash playing Internet games at a
nearby computer arcade. “Counter Strike,” a violent military game, is his
favorite. If he spends enough, the owner lets him sleep there. The youngest is Bilguun, a 7-year-old boy who drifts in and out of the
hole like a ghost, disappearing for days at a time before turning up with
little explanation. There are girls here as well: Soyolerdene, 17, Solongo, 16,
and Ariungerel, 13. When I first meet them, they
sit with their backs to me, not out of disdain but out of embarrassment for
the way they live. Many days go by before they feel comfortable enough to
speak. But when they do, it is clear they endure hardships beyond those of
the boys, living in constant fear of being raped or forced into prostitution
by roving gangs of adult males whom the children call “gods” because of their
size and strength. City
of Lost Children: Part 4 - I feel for Battulga. I
can see the end in him www.dailypilot.com/articles/2009/03/23/special_reports/mongolia/doc486d5aae40db9477258975.txt A few nights later the hole is
packed with bodies. It’s warm enough for the boys nearest the pipes to lounge
without shirts. Summer is a couple of months away. Soon they will leave the
holes for the roof of a nearby apartment building, where they will sleep
beneath passing thunderstorms. City
of Lost Children: Part 5 - 'We drink...,' he says, 'then we cut ourselves' www.dailypilot.com/articles/2009/03/23/special_reports/mongolia/doc486d5b67b46f3082501678.txt
On Saturday night the Tengis kids are making money. The theater is showing the
movie “Chinggis Khan,” a Japanese-produced epic
about the 13th century founder of the Mongol empire. Liberty Square is
overflowing with cars. The children haggle with drivers for money to watch
their vehicles. Essentially, they are being paid not to steal. If the owner
pays them, the car is left alone. If not, there might not be any side-view
mirrors or hubcaps left when he returns. Street
Children Remain Neglected Her name is Narantuya,
which roughly translates as bright sunshine. Nara is 10 years old and the
sole guardian of her little sister Moogii. These
sisters spend their days rummaging through piles of rubbish. They look for
enough food to last through the day, wandering from place to place, sometimes
walking across the whole city in search of food. They share this daily task
with homeless drunks and street dogs, all searching through the same piles of
scraps. They make ends meet (barely) by begging, collecting bottles that they
sell to recycling plants and anything else that they can scavenge that might
have some monetary value. Nurturing Other Precious Resources Today she is better known as Didi Kalika, an Ananda Marga nun with intense blue
eyes, who came to Mongolia 13 years ago to work in a kindergarten and was
confronted by street children facing lonely death in midwinter when the
temperature sinks to -40ºC. She thought that she might take in up to 10.
Today she is caring for 135 children of all ages and running a school,
including a class for special needs children. Mongolians
suffer wrath of winter blight Among these migrants are a growing
number of runaway and abandoned children, some as young as 5. An estimated 3,000-4,000 children live on the streets of
Ulan Bator, the capital. They are
known as "sewer kids". They join gangs of youths that claim
underground sewers, drainpipes, stairwells and ditches as their refuge
sites. They shine shoes, steal food,
forage through rubbish, fight for territory, suffer servitude by homeless
adults, sell their bodies -- or face the danger of being kidnapped by child
traffickers. Traffickers profit from vulnerability of street children in Mongolia Information
about Street Children - Mongolia [DOC] There are 22 care centers/shelters
for street children in Street Children in
Mongolia: Abandoned by the State Supporting Street Children In Mongolia www.savethechildren.org.uk/scuk/jsp/resources/details.jsp?id=644&group=resources§ion= project&subsection=details&pagelang=en Poor health is common among both
street children and children who work. They often risk injury from dangerous
work, poor living conditions and gang violence. Children are also exposed to
sexually transmitted diseases - especially girls working in the sex industry.
But many children are unaware of the risks, and often don't even realize they
are ill. Even if they recognize symptoms, it's often impossible to get
professional help. Many of them are not officially registered, or have lost
proof of identity. Without it, they can't get free health cover, and
hospitals are reluctant to treat them because they won't get paid. Out in the
Cold: The Street Children of Mongolia To a few shrewder Mongolian
businesspeople, the explosion of capitalism has brought prosperity. But the
boom has also left fallout - the country's youth. Along with the decline of the communist
economic structure went most of the country's social welfare money and
programs for young people. Homeless Kids
Fight For Survival Underground Menaced by Sinister Jobless Adults ``Not many grown-ups knew of this
location,'' says Sukhbold, a 14-year-old who gulps down the soup offered by
staff members of the Mongolia: Street Children Amid Newfound Wealth This has resulted in the
phenomenon of Circus Training As An Alternative Educational System www.circus2iraq.org/default.asp?page=13 Previously they lived in the
sewers and heating pipes systems beneath the streets of Street-Children Pay The Price For Parliament's Neglect Their situation was hopeless. None
of the children were in school and the mother did little to help out the
situation. She had moved from her
community to Numbers
of Street Children in Mongolia on the Increase In 1991, there were no street
children in Inside
the Children's Prison in Ulan Bator In the capital, Ulan Bator,
juveniles between the ages of 14 and 18 who are accused of crimes are kept in
a separate detention center, which is also designated a training center.
Here, inmates are kept apart from the adult population, schooled and hopefully
rehabilitated. In 1990, The street children sleep in the open
when the weather is warm and during the freezing winter nights they take
refuge in communal flats or in the city sewers. Below ground they huddle in
gangs of about 25 for safety and sleep close to the insulated pipes carrying
hot water to apartment blocks. Verbist
Care Center in Mongolia Helps Street Children in Ulan Bator Although the children have all
been taken from the sewers of Catholic priest climbs into manholes to minister to Mongolian poor The manholes provide shelter to
the thousands of homeless men, women and children seeking refuge from winter
temperatures that sometimes dip to minus 50 degrees. The priests began collecting the children
from the streets -- at first 15 and then 40. They built a four-story center
that now houses 120 children and also feeds and cares for homeless adults. All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC §
107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use |
Human Trafficking in [Mongolia] [other countries]Street Children in [Mongolia Child Prostitution in [Mongolia] [other countries]