Prevalence,
Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the first decade of the 21st Century gvnet.com/streetchildren/Russia.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
and accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the
situation in HOW TO USE THIS WEBPAGE Students If you are looking
for material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on
this page and others to see which aspect(s) of street life are of particular
interest to you. You might be
interested in exploring how children got there, how they survive, and how some
manage to leave the street. Perhaps
your paper could focus on how some street children abuse the public and how
they are abused by the public … and how they abuse each other. Would you like to write about market
children? homeless children? Sexual and labor exploitation? begging? violence? addiction? hunger? neglect? etc. There is a lot to the subject of Street
Children. Scan other countries as well
as this one. Draw comparisons between
activity in adjacent countries and/or regions. Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper resources
that are available on-line. Teachers Check out some of
the Resources
for Teachers attached to this website. ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** Life on the Streets Joyce Man, streetchildrennews.wordpress.com/category/1/europe-streetkid-news/russia-streetkid-news/ [accessed 14 July
2011] With their
collected funds, Killing Boys -
Russia journeymanpictures www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7gpeKDdGgY [accessed 28 May
2013] A gritty and
absorbing film about a street gang of Russian ten year olds that cleans cars,
begs, steals and sometimes even murders. On 23rd February
1994, ten year old Vlodya Jacobs and his gang
killed and mutilated a 50 year old man. Police records show that the gang was
involved in at least four other killings. This film began as an investigation
of homeless children. It became a report on Vlodya,
his family, his friends and the reasons why he has committed such grotesque
crimes. Popular with the sellers at his local market and generous to other
homeless children, it seems inconceivable that he should have beaten a man to
death. Sitting in her dirty, ramshackle flat, Vlodya's
mother denies that her sons are criminals. Leafing through a shabby photo
album, she recalls the days when they had enough food. Now, she's surviving
on an inadequate pension, having undergone psychiatric tests. Outside in a
leafy park, her two eldest sons tell of the money they have stolen from a
kiosk stall and admit to pickpocketing and beating up drunks. They describe
how they "beat the shit out of one who wouldn't cough up." In this
vast country who will take pity on the Killing Boys? ***
ARCHIVES *** ECPAT Global
Monitoring Report on the status of action against commercial exploitation of
children - THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION [PDF] ECPAT International,
2006 www.ecpat.net/A4A_2005/PDF/Europe/Global_Monitoring_Report-RUSSIA.pdf [accessed 14 July
2011] www.ecpat.org/wp-content/uploads/legacy/A4A_V2_CIS_RUSSIA.pdf [accessed 1 January
2017] Sexual exploitation
of minors occurs in all regions in Russia, but more accurate data and
research are only available on the situation in the northwest, especially in
St. Petersburg, and in central The root causes for
the involvement of children in commercial sexual exploitation in Russia are
poverty, family conflicts, alcoholism, drug abuse in the home, violence,
neglect and poor living and housing conditions. In the north, most child
victims are vagrants (due to the same causes), orphans or have no parental
care. Their involvement in prostitution is also often linked to a dependency
on alcohol and/or drugs. The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/russia.htm [accessed 20
December 2010] INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Economic downturn, the deterioration of social
services, increase in domestic violence and the breakdown of family
structures have led to an increase in the number of street children in the
country. Estimates of the number of
street children range from 100,000 to 150,000, with possibly 4 million
additional children at risk of living on the streets. Homeless children often receive no
education, are more susceptible to substance abuse, and frequently engaged in
criminal activities, including prostitution, to survive. Without educational opportunities or family
support, youth form or join gangs or groups and turn to crime. Children work in informal retail services,
sell goods on the street, wash cars, make deliveries, collect trash, and beg. Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61671.htm [accessed 10
February 2020] CHILDREN
-
Estimates of the number of homeless children ranged from 2 million to 5
million. According to the MVD, approximately 109 thousand vagrant minors were
removed from the streets and public places in the first quarter of 2004
alone. According to the
Moscow Department of Social Security, 12 percent of street children who ended
up in shelters have run away from orphanages or boarding schools. Law
enforcement officials reportedly often abused street children, pinned the
blame for otherwise unsolved crimes on them, and committed acts including
extortion, illegal detention, and psychological and sexual violence against
them. According to the Public Verdict Foundation, prosecutors refused to
bring charges in 80 percent of cases of alleged police misconduct towards
such minors. Homeless children often engaged in criminal activities, received
no education, and were vulnerable to drug and alcohol abuse. Some young girls
on the streets turned to, or were forced into, prostitution to survive. Local
and international NGOs provided a variety of services for the homeless. Many SECTION
6 WORKER RIGHTS
– [d] Accepted social prohibitions against employment of children and the
availability of adult workers at low wages generally prevented widespread
abuse of child labor. Nonetheless, children working and living on the streets
remained a problem. Parents often used their children to lend credence to
their poverty when begging or had them beg. Homeless children were at
heightened risk for exploitation in prostitution or criminal activities. Human Rights
Reports » 2004 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41704.htm [accessed 26 January
2022] CHILDREN
- The
status of many children has deteriorated since the collapse of communism
because of falling living standards, an increase in the number of broken
homes, and domestic violence. In Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 30 September 2005 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/russia2005.html [accessed 20 December
2010] [74] The Committee
expresses its concern at the increasing number of street children and their
vulnerability to all forms of abuse and exploitation, as well as the fact
that these children do not have access to public health and education services.
The lack of a systematic and comprehensive strategy to address the situation
and protect these children is also of concern to the Committee. Drunken Nation:
Russia’s Depopulation Bomb Nicholas Eberstadt, World Affairs Journal, April 21, 2009 georgiandaily.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11213&Itemid=72 [accessed 14 July
2011] www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/drunken-nation-russia%E2%80%99s-depopulation-bomb [accessed 1 January
2017] School enrollment
is sharply lower for primary-school-age children—99 percent in 1991 versus 91
percent in 2004. And the number of abandoned children is sharply higher.
According to official statistics, as of 2004 over 400,000 Russian children
below 18 years of age were in “residential care.” This means that roughly 1
child in 70 was in a children’s home, orphanage, or state boarding school.
Russia is also home to a large and possibly growing contingent of street
children whose numbers could well exceed those under institutional care.
According to Human Rights Watch, over 100,000 children in Russia have been
abandoned by their parents each year since 1996. If accurate, this number,
compared to the annual tally of births for the Russian Federation, which
averaged about 1.4 million a year for the 1996–2007 period, would suggest
that in excess of 7 percent of Russia’s children are being discarded by their
parents ... Partnership to
Prevent HIV Among Vulnerable Russian Youth www.usaid.gov/news-information/press-releases/partnership-prevent-hiv-among-vulnerable-russian-youth [accessed 14 October
2012] Estimates indicate
that there are up to 10,000 street children and youth in Experts See Drop in
Number of Street Kids Irina Titova, The www.times.spb.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=26174http://www.times.spb.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=26174 [accessed 14 July
2011] streetchildrennews.wordpress.com/2008/06/03/experts-see-drop-in-number-of-street-kids/ [accessed 1 January
2017] St. Petersburg has
from 3,000 to 10,000 street children but their number is gradually
decreasing, experts have said. “It’s
hard to count these children and hard to give exact statistics. However, we
have noticed that the number is decreasing,” Vera Klimova,
coordinator of work with neglected children at Innovations Center, said at a
press briefing dedicated to the problem last week. Klimova said that
in the Nevsky and Admiralteisky
districts where help for street children is available the number of street
children has decreased significantly.
“However, you can still see quite a number of them at Prospekt Prosveshcheniya or in
the Kupchino district,” in the north and the south
of the city respectively, Klimova said. Lou Michel and Susan
Schulman, The Buffalo News, At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 14 July
2011] These ragtag kids
are It’s a similar
scene in Moscow, where city police point to a group of youths hanging out at
the Metro train station at Ilyinsky Square. They
wait for the pornographers the same way the prostitutes wait for johns. “It’s
a popular spot,” Police Investigator Sergei Sokolov
said. Stopping sexual
abuse of Russian kids Cesar Chelala M.D., The search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20070911cc.html [accessed 20
December 2010] www.ipce.info/library/newspaper-article/stopping-sexual-abuse-russian-kids [accessed 1 January
2017] St. Petersburg and
the northwest region of Children engaged in
prostitution frequently belong to families in extreme poverty, and
characterized by alcohol and drug addiction or a hostile family atmosphere.
In other cases, they are orphans who have made the street their home. – htsccp Delivering hope to
Russia's unwanted street kids Rachael Hughes,
October 14 2006 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 14 July
2011] While it was
inconceivable in Maria's Children Dr Jan Adams, MD,
Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, Vol. 160 No. 5, May 2006 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 14 July
2011] This is a
population that is undernourished, understimulated,
underbonded, undereducated (both academically and
in life skills), and abused in nearly every physical, sexual, and
psychological way imaginable. There are exceptions of course, but the average
government orphanage is a grim place indeed, understaffed with underpaid and
overworked employees. The result of this hopeless
situation for these forgotten children who are anathema in their own country
is a nearly 25% suicide rate and, without intervention, a life span that
averages 25 years. The children, unprepared in any way for the challenging
Russian life, are dumped out of the orphanages at age 16 years. They are
offered few options in life—cannon fodder for the army, various criminal
occupations such as drug trafficking and prostitution, or work in paint or
shoe factories (which are highly toxic). They are lost to disease, drug and
alcohol addiction, white slavery, and the military along with suicide and
violent death. Russian Runaways
Find Few Willing To Help Them Fred Weir, The
Christian Science Monitor, www.csmonitor.com/2001/1219/p7s1-woeu.html [accessed 14 July
2011] Oleg Mukhin lives with several friends in a hollow beneath the
platform of The Street Children
Project in V Rev Myron Effing,
C.J.D., At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 14 July
2011] Rachael Hughes from
Assessment
Mission To St Petersburg [DOC] -- Time frame: February 7th -12th 2001, Locations: Hugh Griffiths, Médecins du Monde www.lakareivarlden.org/files/St%20Petersburg%20rapport%20eng.doc [accessed 27
September 2011] At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly also be accessible [here] St. Petersburg has approximately
5 million registered citizens within the municipal boundaries. There are an
estimated 5000 to 7000 street children in HUMAN RIGHTS, LEGAL
ISSUES & LAW ENFORCEMENT - One of the principle barriers standing in the way of
street children accessing their right under the United Nations Convention of
the Rights of the Child to medical care is the fact that many of them lack
the correct documentation. The "Propiska"
is the stamp in the internal Russian passport which notifies doctors, nurses,
police and the health authorities that the holder of the stamp is registered
in a certain city, town or village. If the person seeks state medical care in
a region outside his or her "Propiska"
area, then he or she will be denied it. An ever increasing
number of the children living on the streets of Similarly, both
street children and heroin users are subject to beatings and illegal
detentions by certain police officers. Heroin users are often actively
persecuted by police officers. Such persecution can be lawful when heroin
users break Russian legal codes. However, drug users are subject to arbitrary
arrest, police break new syringes and females are often exposed to sexual
misconduct on the part of the police. Letter from Carel de Rooy, UNICEF
Representative in Russian Federation and Belarus Carel De Rooy, UNICEF At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 14 July
2011] However, life in
the street was not an easy one either. “You can not survive in the street
unless you are a member of some group of loitering youngsters”, he says. “And
you need to make your own contribution to the group’s income by means of
begging or stealing. Otherwise, you’ll stay hungry or can even be beaten”.
Dima had to do all these terrible things in order to survive. He was only
eight years old at that time! Aid Group Alleges
Massive Child-Trafficking in Radio Free Europe/Radio
www.rferl.org/content/article/1055450.html [accessed 26 June
2013] An aid group says
more than 30,000 children and teenagers go missing every year in Sergei Komkov, president of the Russian Fund for Education,
blamed Russian politicians for addressing the problem of street kids only
during election campaigns. He said government aid to help street kids this
year has dropped by 15 to 20 percent. Komkov said the majority
of homeless youngsters in Russia are not orphans but have fled broken and
violent homes. – htsc Kids
struggle to survive - Prefer homelessness to cruel treatment in shelters Douglas Birch, articles.baltimoresun.com/2002-01-20/news/0201200244_1_railway-station-subway-begging [accessed 11
Aug 2013] They flutter
through the Kursky railway station like flocks of
dirt-smudged pigeons, sniffing glue fumes out of plastic bags, begging for
money from strangers and scattering as police approach waving
nightsticks. These are Homeless
Children -- Helpless Victims Of Collapsing Welfare, Family Systems Francesca Mereu, June 20, 2002 www.rferl.org/content/article/1100041.html [accessed 14 October
2012] Dmitriy, who has
been living in the Way Home shelter for four years, fled The Photographic
Portfolio of John Kaplan www.johnkaplan.com/pages/russia3.html [accessed 14 July
2011] Sergei: A Loss of
Freedom. He is again a helpless little boy as shelter workers give him a bath
and check for lice. Sensing a loss of freedom, Sergei refuses to sleep in the
shelter for more than a few nights at a time. The Photographic
Portfolio of John Kaplan www.johnkaplan.com/pages/russia1.html [accessed 14 July
2011] Sergei: The Airport
is His Home. Sergei Mayorov, 8, has been alone on the street in Consortium for
Street Children 2003 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 14 July
2011] This organisation aims for social rehabilitation of street
children through a centre that responds to their physical needs and offers
various programmes for their support. Youth leaders
are identified among the street children and invited to participate in a
leadership process through training and joint activities with social workers. Children face
street curfew in Moscow Michael Binyon, The Times ( www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/6038-11.cfm [accessed 14 July
2011] At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] Moscow is
considering a curfew on all children aged under 16
as a way of dealing with the 50,000 homeless children roaming the capital’s
streets, many of whom are criminals, prostitutes and drug addicts by the age
of 11. Kaladze is mother to Erik Tryggestad, The Christian Chronicle, Molodozhnoe
www.christianchronicle.org/article1434736~Kaladze_is_mother_to_Russia’%3Bs_‘%3Bstreet_children%27 [accessed 14 July
2011] www.christianchronicle.org/article/kaladze-is-mother-to-russias-street-children [accessed 1 January
2017] They’re not alone.
Research from a university in St. Petersburg shows that the number of street
children in the city of 4.2 million is at least 16,000, according to a local
newspaper. And 77 percent of these
children — some as young as 9 — work exploitative and dangerous jobs, according
to the newspaper. Many are addicted to
chemical substances. Model glue, squeezed into plastic bags and sniffed, is
especially popular. Street Children www.copris.com/sgroup/street/kids-e.htm At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 14 July
2011] There are about 2
million street children in On this page you
can see some organizations which really help to homeless kids in different
regions of Love's Bridge -
Empowering Love's Bridge 2009 [accessed 14 July
2011] Welcome! Love’s
Bridge is an organization dedicated to empowering street youth in Russia to
overcome their addictions, resume studies and become self-reliant. We
currently run two centers for street children and underprivileged young
people in the city of Perm, which is situated near the border of Europe and
Asia. Medecins Sans Frontieres MSF, 20.04.2004 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 14 July
2011] "These
teenagers need a place to turn to", explained MSF project coordinator
Gabriella Muretto. "They come from all over the former Soviet Union and
have ended up on Voice of the
Children Voice Of The
Children votc.org/history [accessed 11
Aug 2013] That cold morning
in 1993 was the beginning of Alex's journey into the world of Programs in Russia Russian Children’s
Welfare Society At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 14 July
2011] HOMELESS SHELTERS - For hundreds of
thousands of children in Sarah Rainsford, BBC
News, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1780436.stm [accessed 14 July
2011] "My
stepfather's an alcoholic. He used to shout at me and hit me. So I left. Now
I live here, at the station. I sleep on central heating pipes, or on a train.
The police sometimes pick us up, but they always let us out again." No Help For
Chechnya’s Street Kids Amina Visayeva in At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 14 July
2011] As a result of
traditional Chechen attitudes, the children are ashamed to beg, but try to
earn their money by finding jobs.
Children have suffered terribly from the decade of war in Yana Voitova, iwpr.net/report-news/north-ossetia-lost-street-children [accessed 14 July
2011] iwpr.net/global-voices/north-ossetia-lost-street-children [accessed 1 January
2017] Fifteen-year-old
Diana looks like a child, but before she arrived at the Vladikavkaz Center
For Young Offenders, she was making a living from prostitution. The street
girl’s services were extremely cheap: just one dollar for oral sex. The Center, in the capital of the North
Ossetian republic, will not provide a permanent home to Diana and other
street children like her. After a month, unless she is sent on to a unit for
more serious offenders, she will be sent back home – or back onto the street. Few Choices for Fred Weir, Christian
Science Monitor, 16 November 1999 www.csmonitor.com/1999/1116/p7s2.html [accessed 14 October
2012] Fourteen-year-old
Oksana Smirnova is a recent recruit to Russia's growing
army of abandoned children. Experts say the numbers of these kids, trapped
between a precarious street existence and official institutions that are
sometimes worse, have swollen to crisis proportions. Group Raises Alarm
For Reuters North
America, pangaea.org/street_children/russia/russia3.htm [accessed 14 July
2011] A million children
are homeless in Russia and the nation's youngsters suffer an indifference
symptomatic of a grave sickness in society. Trafficking for
Sexual Exploitation: The Case of the Prepared for the
International Organization for Migration IOM by Prof. Donna M. Hughes, June
2002 www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/russia.pdf [accessed 20
December 2010] publications.iom.int/system/files/pdf/mrs_7.pdf [accessed 1 January
2017] EXECUTIVE SUMMARY - For others, such
as the new groups of street children and orphans which did not exist in Russia
ten years ago, they are recruited at an early age, virtually sold into
slavery, and may never know another way of life. This is true for countless
young Russian girls and boys, some as young as 12 years of age, who may later
become a part of criminal syndicates themselves and perpetuate this
phenomenon. In this way, more and more people without options are lured into
sub-human and degrading conditions, often for the rest of their lives. - htsccp Street children in
Russia: steps to prevention [PDF] Balachova TN, Bonner BL, Levy
S. - Int J Soc Welfare
2009: 18: 27–44 © 2008 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell
Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare moldovaresearch.wikispaces.com/file/view/Russia+2.pdf [accessed 7 October
2012] This article
examines the historical evolution of the development of social policy toward
street children in Russia and makes recommendations for prevention. The
historical examination begins with the Soviet period, when statistics on
social problems were not publicly known. It continues through the post-Soviet
period when there was an emerging awareness about the increasing number of
abused, abandoned children and children living on the streets. Etiological
factors, such as child maltreatment and parental substance abuse, are then
discussed. Based on these etiological factors, the article then proposes a
model in which existing institutions and professionals are supported in
facilitating an integrated system of primary, secondary and tertiary
prevention. This includes improving child protection services and
interventions to prevent children leaving their homes, early identification
of children who are becoming involved in street life and a continuum of care
for children who cannot return home. All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT
ARTICLES. Cite this webpage as: Patt,
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