Prevalence,
Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the first decade of the 21st Century gvnet.com/streetchildren/KyrgyzRepublic.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
and accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the
situation in the 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 *** V.
Family Environment And Alternative Care
[DOC] Committee on the
Rights of the Child CRC -- NGO Commentaries to the Initial Report of the
Kyrgyz Republic on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, January 03,
2000 www.crin.org/docs/resources/treaties/crc.24/kyrgystanNGOreport.doc [accessed 12 June
2011] [page 13] g) CHILDREN DEPRIVED OF
FAMILY ENVIRONMENT - There
are 600-800 street children in Bishkek.
The main reasons are alcoholism of parents, poverty, abuse and home
violence. Street children are excluded
from education. They work at bazaars,
petrol stations or commit petty theft, pocket stealing, car robbery, quite
often they are doing it under leadership of adults. They are often arrested by militia, beaten
and humiliated, have to give bribes to get free. Many street children live in the town
heating systems, abandoned buildings, etc.
In some towns (Bishkek, Kara-Balta) the shelters run by NGOs for such
children can accept only a limited number of children. Dire needs of International
Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies IFRC, 19 February 2007 www.ifrc.org/en/news-and-media/news-stories/international/dire-needs-of-central-asias-street-children/ [accessed 10 June
2011] In his military uniform,
Aklimomun Esenovich cuts an unlikely figure as a director of a children's
home. But as an employee of the Ministry of Interior, he is charged with
running one of Kyrgyzstan's two "collection centres", where the
authorities hold children found on the streets for 30 days, before either
reuniting them with their families or sending them to a state orphanage. However, with a
budget of one dollar a day, he is struggling to feed and clothe the children.
The centre in the capital, Bishkek, was designed for 50 boys and girls up to
the age of 18 but it often takes in double that number. In the first half of
2006, some 750 children passed through, 200 more than in the same period last
year. "The
conditions are extremely poor," he says, pointing to the outside toilet
and dilapidated bath house, where the children only have cold water to wash
themselves. "We have few books, beds that are thirty years old and no
transport. ***
ARCHIVES *** ECPAT Global
Monitoring Report on the status of action against commercial exploitation of
children - KYRGYZSTAN [PDF] ECPAT International,
2008 www.ecpat.net/A4A_2005/PDF/Europe/Global_Monitoring_Report-KYRGYSTAN.pdf [accessed 10 June
2011] ECPAT International,
20012 resources.ecpat.net/EI/Pdf/A4A_II/A4A_V2_CA_KYRGYZSTAN.pdf [accessed 21
December 2016] The number of
street children in Kyrgyzstan is high, particularly in the southern
regions. According to UNICEF, the
number of children living and working in the streets is increasing, but there
is limited data available due to the absence of an official structure
responsible for collecting data in this domain. Some statistics suggest there are an
estimated 2,000 children living and/or working in the streets in Bishkek and
1,000 in Osh. Street children are
particularly vulnerable to prostitution, physical abuse, as well as extreme
poverty. Their vulnerability is a
result of socio-economic difficulties including poverty, labor migration and
parental alcoholism or drug addiction. At times, children are the only income
earners of the family and feel responsible to provide for the needs of the
entire family, not only for food and money but also alcohol. The Department of
Labor’s 2004 Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/kyrgyz-republic.htm [accessed 29
November 2010] INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Statistics on the number of working children under
the age of 15 in the Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61657.htm [accessed 9 February
2020] CHILDREN
- As
in previous years, there were numerous reports of child abandonment due to
parents' lack of resources, which led to larger numbers of children in institutions,
foster care, or on the streets. State orphanages and foster homes also faced
a lack of resources and often were unable to provide proper care. Some
children too old to remain in orphanages were transferred to mental health
care facilities, even when they did not exhibit mental health problems. Many
street children left home because of abusive (8 percent) or alcoholic (10
percent) parents or desperate economic conditions (75 percent). Government
and NGO estimates of the number of street children nationwide ranged from
approximately 2 to 15 thousand, depending on the time of the year.
Approximately 80 percent of street children were internal migrants. Street
children were detained by police and either sent home (if an address was
known) or to a rehabilitation center or orphanage. The two MVD-maintained
rehabilitation centers, one each in Bishkek and Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 1 October 2004 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/kyrgyzstan2004.html [accessed 17
February 2011] [63]. The Committee
reiterates its concern with regard to the increasing number of street
children in the State party and the vulnerable situation they face daily,
with many of their rights not being protected (in particular their social and
economic rights) and being subjected to frequent mistreatment by police
officers. It is also concerned that migrants with no formal residence permits
also live in very precarious housing conditions, without access to basic
infrastructure and in fear of forced eviction. Committee On Rights
Of Child Concludes Thirty-Seventh Session UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2004/hr4796.doc [accessed 10 June
2011] The Committee was
concerned over the reports of children being injured as a consequence of
existing landmines on the borders of the State party. The Committee
urged the State party to continue its efforts to achieve a bilateral
agreement for the de-mining and demarcation of the border areas, including
the ratification and full implementation of the Ottawa Convention on
Anti-Personnel Landmines. The Committee was concerned with the high
level of dropout rates in schools, especially among girls, due to forced
marriages. It was also concerned about the increasing practice of requesting
parents to pay unofficial monthly and/or one-time enrolment fees, as well as
to pay for textbooks and school repairs, which constituted obstacles for
children to access educational institutes. The Committee remained
concerned about certain practices that did not allow for persons under 18 to
have their own documentation and with reports that in some cases
asylum-seekers were not being allowed to register their claims for refugee
status because of their ethnic background. Many parents hope
for the government to solve their problem with children Aizada Kutueva,
24.Kg News Agency, Bishkek, 28/10-2010 eng.24.kg/community/2010/10/28/14516.html [accessed 10 June
2011] “There are many
parents trying to solve their problems by giving children in the care of the
state,” Aleksey Petrushevsky, the Head of the Rehabilitation Centre for
street children, said at a news conference on 28 October. According to him, the authority of the
family falls down. “As a result, more and more children had to live in closed
institutions that badly affect their development.” UNICEF Executive
Director visits Kyrgyzstan United Nations
Children's Fund UNICEF, Bishkek, 16 October 2008 www.unicef.org/media/media_45973.html [accessed 10 June
2011] Veneman visited the
Over 50 per cent of
babies aged 6-24 months are anemic and approximately 13.7 per cent of the
nation’s under-fives suffer from stunted growth in the Kyrgyz Republic.
This is mainly due to micronutrient deficiencies. CRC Completed
Review Of Initial Report Of The Kyrgyz Republic UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 23 May 2000 www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/0/021AA9FFBE8644E0802568E9002C02BA?opendocument [accessed 10 June
2011] DISCUSSION - Children were
used on occasion for seasonal agricultural work, although the State
discouraged the practice, the delegation said, especially when it interfered
with school attendance. A human-rights activist regularly protested the use
of child labour in tobacco harvesting, and the Government was aware of the
problem, but identifying every case of the practice, especially in the
southern regions of the country, was difficult. Each case reported was
referred to local authorities. Work by the estimated 160 street children in
the country was a concern; authorities tried to return them to school, but in
fact it was hard to assist such children. A centre was being constructed for
the rehabilitation of street children with financial help from Children of David Levene, The
Guardian, April 2006 www.guardian.co.uk/flash/page/0,,1756789,00.html [accessed 10 June
2011] Today in Focus On Street
Children In Bishkek UN Integrated
Regional Information Networks IRIN, Bishkek, 6 July 2001 www.irinnews.org/report/14829/kyrgyzstan-irin-focus-on-street-children-in-bishkek [accessed 10 March
2015] The fact is that
many of the children on the street today are working to support their
families, because their parents’ income no longer suffices. Many work as porters, or sell newspapers,
flowers or candy, or wash cars in the streets. There have also been
incidences of child prostitution.
Other children on the street, however, are there purely due to
parental neglect or, in some cases, abandonment. The United Nations
in dev.un.org.kg/english/unlink.phtml?198#5 [Last access date
unavailable] AUGUST 08, 2003 TRAINING SEMINAR “SOCIAL INTEGRATION OF
HOMELESS, WORKING AND STREET CHILDREN” TAKES PLACE ON 5 – 14 - One of the
serious consequences of the hard social-economic situation in Kyrgyzstan is
an enormous growth of the number of uncared and neglected street children,
who cannot afford sufficient food, education and whose life is often
endangered by AIDS, drug abuse, sexual violence, exploitation and
discrimination. The United Nations
in dev.un.org.kg/english/unlink.phtml?223#2 Last access date
unavailable] RECENTLY APPOINTED
UNICEF REGIONAL DIRECTOR FOR CEE/CIS/BALTIC, MS. MARIA CALIVIS VISITS
KYRGYZSTAN
- Majority of these children do not go to school – as is it far away, they
need to travel by bus. But not all the families can afford it. Ms Calivis
raised this issue at the meeting with the high officials of the country. As
she said, the state is responsible for providing these children with learning
opportunities. Ralph Fiennes’
visit to United Nations
Children's Fund UNICEF, 6th October 2003 ralphfiennes-corner.net/index.php?id=22 [accessed 10 June
2011] His father was
drunk, had beaten up the mother, destroyed the home. Andrey had run away and was
living the wild migrant gypsy existence on the streets. Eventually, the young
people from the center took Andrey back to his mother. And this woman,
confronted with her son, was clearly wounded and bereft, and at a loss as to
how to take care of him. She let him go to an orphanage rather than taking
him back. Now he’s back on the street. Children
with Nowhere to Go Ulugbek Babakulov - iwpr.net/report-news/kyrgyzstan-children-nowhere-go [accessed 12 June
2011] iwpr.net/global-voices/kyrgyzstan-children-nowhere-go [accessed 21
December 2016] His parents, he
said, had tried to put him into an orphanage in his home village, complaining
that they couldn't afford to look after him. When he had been refused, they
tried to palm him off at the local police station but were turned away
again. At this point, Slava says, his
mother and father just abandoned him before leaving for Country
Overviews Childhood
Poverty Research and www.childhoodpoverty.org/index.php?action=countryo#25 [accessed
12 June 2011] A
Generation at Risk - Children of Kazakstan and
Kyrgyzstan Armin Bauer, Nina Boschmann, David Green, and Kathleen Kuehnast.Manila:
Asian Development Bank (ADB), 1998, 158 pages -- ISBN: 971-561-097-8 www.adb.org/Documents/Books/Generation_at_Risk/default.asp [accessed 12 June
2011] ideas.repec.org/a/eee/asieco/v9y1998i4p671-677.html [accessed 19
December 2016] Children in Alpine Fund At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 12 June
2011] NUMBER OF CHILDREN
LIVING IN INSTITUTIONS
- The majority are social orphans, children who have families, but whose
families lack the support systems needed to keep them in their homes. Social orphans may include children from
families that are financially struggling, physically abusive, or using drugs
and alcohol. NUMBER OF STREET
CHILDREN IN BISHKEK
- The "street children", or homeless children, in Bishkek most
often live in abandoned buildings, at the bazaars and nearly all beg on the
streets. Some of these children are biological or social orphans, and many
have fled or been forced to leave their homes or institutions. Rights
of the Child in Kyrgyzstan [PDF] Ramazan Dyryldaev
and Séverine Jacomy, The
Kyrgyz Committee for Human Rights -- A report prepared for the Committee on
the Rights of Child, Geneva, February 2004 www.omct.org/files/2005/09/3074/report_children_kyrgyzstan_eng.pdf [accessed 28 January
2016] 5d. CHILDREN LIVING ON THE STREETS - According to the
official report of the Government programme "Zhany Muun", in 2003
more than 20,000 children of school age were not attending school. Unofficial
estimates exceed 250,000. At any Kyrgyz market place one can witness
out-of-school children selling merchandise or offering to carry buyers' bags
for a small amount of money, or just begging or stealing. Out of those, in
Bishkek alone, between 500 and 5000 children are said to be living on the
streets. There are also
reportedly more and more children who have become main providers for their
families by living and working in the streets in the province, especially in Through the NGO
network on Child Abuse and Neglect in Some shelters have
been opened in Bishkek and in several regions, where children can get medical
help and psychological rehabilitation. Hospitals and services delivered by
doctors for the poor and vulnerable, in the main, are of low quality and, in
some cases, charged for. At present, except for Bishkek, there are no
educational programs giving advice on safer sex or drug use while there is
increasing number of HIV/AIDS cases among children and teenagers. IWPR also
documented the lack of services and coherent protection policy for street
children in the southern Kyrgyz town of All
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