Human Trafficking in [Russia] [other countries]Street Children in [Russia Child Prostitution in [Russia] [other countries] |
Prevalence, Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the
first ten years of the 21st Century -
2000 to 2009
|
||
|
CAUTION: The following links and accompanying text have been culled
from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** With their collected funds,
Vladimir said, they will buy one meal, and use the remainder for butorphanol, an opiate analgesic that, at 50 rubles an ampule, is a cheap alternative to heroin. At night, they
plan to return to sleep in an attic atop a building near the Timiryazevskaya metro station. ***
ARCHIVES *** www.ecpat.net/A4A_2005/PDF/Europe/Global_Monitoring_Report-RUSSIA.pdf Sexual exploitation of minors
occurs in all regions in 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. UNICEF - The Big Picture U.S.
Dept of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs 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. Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 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. Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country Reports on Human Rights
Practices - 2004 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) - 2005 [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 georgiandaily.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11213&Itemid=72
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 news.prnewswire.com/DisplayReleaseContent.aspx?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/03-18-2009/0004990979&EDATE=
Estimates indicate that there are up
to 10,000 street children and youth in St. Petersburg, many of whom struggle
with substance abuse and other risky behaviors. Studies demonstrate extremely
high rates of HIV transmission (37.4%) among this group, who have limited
access to clinical treatment and care. Experts
See Drop in Number of Street Kids www.times.spb.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=26174http://www.times.spb.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=26174 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. Russia
and U.S. are bound in the illegal cyber-trafficking of child pornography www.buffalonews.com/339/story/182863.html 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 St. Petersburg and the northwest
region of Russia report a high incidence of sex tourism, which is widely
advertised on the Internet and aimed at people from neighboring Scandinavian
countries. Prostitution is the most common form of child exploitation in the
region. Frequent recruiting targets
are street children or children
from dysfunctional families. Once they're entrapped, they may end up in
brothels and red-light districts as they get older. Recruiters prey on these
children's situations, deceiving them into a life of dependency. 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 With their collected funds,
Vladimir said, they will buy one meal, and use the remainder for butorphanol, an opiate analgesic that, at 50 rubles an ampule, is a cheap alternative to heroin. At night, they
plan to return to sleep in an attic atop a building near the Timiryazevskaya metro station. Delivering hope to www.ashburtonguardian.co.nz/index.asp?articleid=8133 At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
While it was inconceivable in Maria's Children archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/160/5/464 At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
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 www.csmonitor.com/2001/1219/p7s1-woeu.html Oleg Mukhin
lives with several friends in a hollow beneath the platform of Moscow's
Vikhino railway station. The thin, small and nervous 11-year-old insists that
it's not a bad life. But sometimes, he says, the police try to round the kids
up by spraying tear gas into their hiding places and hitting them with
truncheons. The Street Children Project in vladmission.org/newsletter/Sunrise/Sunrise46/Sunrise46.asp At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] Rachael Hughes from Médecins du
Monde Sweden carried out an assessment mission to St Petersburg www.lakareivarlden.org/sidor/stp_en.htm#10 At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
Letter from Carel de Rooy, UNICEF Representative in Russian
Federation and Belarus www.unicef.org/russia/support_2003.html 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 Russia www.stopvaw.org/26Oct20042.html 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 www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/6032-7.cfm 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 www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/6317-3.cfm Dmitriy, who has been living in
the Way Home shelter for four years, fled Tajikistan with his mother in 1994,
two years after the outbreak of civil war. He said he and his mother made
their way to the Russian capital in hopes of finding better living
conditions, but things only grew worse. "I came here [to www.johnkaplan.com/pages/russia3.html 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. www.johnkaplan.com/pages/russia1.html Sergei: The Airport is His Home.
Sergei Mayorov, 8, has been alone on the street in www.streetchildren.org.uk/organisation/?id=191 At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
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 www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/6038-11.cfm Kaladze is mother to Russia’s street children www.christianchronicle.org/article1434736%7EKaladze_is_mother_to_Russia&%23146%3Bs_&%23145%3Bstreet_children%27 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] There are about 2 million street
children in Love's Bridge - Empowering Russian Street Children to Become Productive Members of Society www.lovesbridge.com/ 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. MSF
Opens Day Center For Moscow Street Children www.msf.org/msfinternational/invoke.cfm?objectid=0041BE12-006B-4649- 8281E37E86843F23&component=toolkit.article&method=full_html&CFID=1300199&CFTOKEN=32406958 "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 www.votc.org/history.htm At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] That cold morning in 1993 was the
beginning of Alex's journey into the world of Programs in Russia www.rcws.org/RussiaAssistance.html At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
HOMELESS SHELTERS - For hundreds of thousands of
children in news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1780436.stm "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 iwpr.net/?p=crs&s=f&o=158986&apc_state=henicrs2004 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 North Ossetia: Lost Street Children iwpr.net/?p=crs&s=f&o=243970&apc_state=henicrs2005 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 Moscow's Homeless Children www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/3626.html#6 [scroll down to #6 Christian
Science Monitor 16 November 1999] Fourteen-year-old Oksana Smirnova is a recent
recruit to Group Raises
Alarm For Russia's Street Children pangaea.org/street_children/russia/russia3.htm A million children are homeless in
Trafficking
for Sexual Exploitation: The Case of the Russian Federation [PDF] www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/russia.pdf 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 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, Prof. Martin,
"Street Children - |
Human Trafficking in [Russia] [other countries]Street Children in [Russia Child Prostitution in [Russia] [other countries]