Prevalence,
Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the first decade of the 21st
Century gvnet.com/streetchildren/Mongolia.htm
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CAUTION: The following links and
accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation
in Mongolia. Some of these links may
lead to websites that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even
false. No attempt has been made to validate their authenticity or to
verify their content. 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 ARTICLES *** Street Children
Remain Neglected Damien Dawson, 06
April 2007 streetchildrennews.wordpress.com/2007/04/06/street-children-remain-neglected/ [accessed 21 June
2011] 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 Robert B. Gilbert, Seattlepi, Ulan Bator, March 10, 2007 www.seattlepi.com/default/article/Mongolians-suffer-wrath-of-winter-blight-1230691.php [accessed 21 June
2011] 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 Kentaro Kurihara,
The Asahi Shimbun, Ulan Bator, March 5, 2005 www.asahi.com/english/world/TKY200503050152.html [accessed 21 June
2011] hpn.asu.edu/archives/2005-May/009033.html [accessed 25
December 2016] ``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 *** ECPAT Global
Monitoring Report on the status of action against commercial exploitation of
children - Mongolia [PDF] ECPAT International,
2006 www.ecpat.net/A4A_2005/PDF/EAP/Global_Monitoring_Report-MONGOLIA.pdf [accessed 21 June
2011] resources.ecpat.net/EI/Pdf/A4A_II/A4A_V2_EAP_MONGOLIA.pdf [accessed 25
December 2016] 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 The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor U.S. Dept of Labor
Bureau of International Labor Affairs, 2005 www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/mongolia.htm [accessed 21
February 2011] INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - UNICEF estimated that 36.6 percent of children in
Mongolia ages 5 to 14 years were working in 2000. Children herd livestock and work as
domestic servants. Other children sell
goods, polish shoes, act as porters, scavenge for saleable materials, beg,
and act as gravediggers. Children also
work in informal coal mining, either in the mines or scavenging for coal
outside, as well as in informal gold mining.
There are increasing numbers of children living on the streets in
Ulaanbaatar who may be at risk of engaging in hazardous work or face sexual
exploitation. Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices U.S. Dept of State
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, March 8, 2006 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/62653.htm [accessed 10
February 2020] 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) UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 3 June 2005 sim.law.uu.nl/SIM/CaseLaw/uncom.nsf/0/6665ba6cee999821c12570350028974c?OpenDocument [accessed 21
February 2011] [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. Fattige barn i Mongolia Johan Andreas,
Angola, 28/10/2008 www.norsknettskole.no/gs/view.cgi?&link_id=0.8758.1503498&session_id=0 [accessed 21 June
2011] 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 The Daily Pilot,
August 01, 2008 articles.dailypilot.com/2008-08-01/news/dpt-mongoliashort080208_1_manholes-live-full-story [accessed 21 June
2011] 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. City of Lost
Children: A gripping look at Mongolia's children who are left to survive on
their own in a city that turns a blind-eye Kent Treptow, The Daily Pilot, July 12, 2008 articles.dailypilot.com/2008-07-12/features/doc486d590e8f054181571157_1_kiosk-street-children-lost-children [accessed 21 June
2011] 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 Kent Treptow, The Daily Pilot, July 12, 2008 articles.dailypilot.com/2008-07-12/features/doc486d5992d5d7e250885083_1_manholes-truck-success-story [accessed 21 June
2011] 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 Kent Treptow, The Daily Pilot, July 12, 2008 articles.dailypilot.com/2008-07-12/features/doc486d59fb211d4832590405_1_pipes-faces-arcade [accessed 21 June
2011] 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 Kent Treptow, The Daily Pilot, July 12, 2008 articles.dailypilot.com/2008-07-12/features/doc486d5aae40db9477258975_1_pipes-fight-escalates-puppies [accessed 21 June
2011] 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' Kent Treptow, The Daily Pilot, July 12, 2008 articles.dailypilot.com/2008-07-12/features/doc486d5b67b46f3082501678_1_scars-missionaries-older-brother [accessed 21 June
2011] 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. Nurturing Other
Precious Resources The Australian,
April 05, 2007 www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/nurturing-other-precious-resources/story-e6frg6z6-1111113286438 [accessed 12 October
2012] 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. Traffickers profit
from vulnerability of street children in Mongolia Daryhand Bayar, United
Nations Children's Fund UNICEF Mongolia, March 7, 2006 [accessed 21 June
2011] Mongolia’s peaceful
transition to democracy since the mid-1990s after 70 years of communism has
brought many positive changes to the country. But it has also resulted in
negative impacts such as a dramatic rise in the number of children living and
working on the streets and an increased risk that children will be trafficked
for sexual and other purposes, including through adoption. Although there is
insufficient hard evidence to date, it seems highly likely that many of the
children in Mongolia who become victims of traffickers are those who spend
much time on the street and are most deprived of protection. Information about
Street Children - Mongolia [DOC] This report is taken
from “A Civil Society Forum for East and South East Asia on Promoting and
Protecting the Rights of Street Children”, 12-14 March 2003, Bangkok,
Thailand At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 21 June
2011] There are 22 care
centers/shelters for street children in Ulan Bator, accommodating 800
children as of 2002, but there are still a number of children on the streets,
at least 300-400 in Ulan Bator and to lesser extent in some other areas like Dornod, Zamiin Uud, etc. Approximately 70% of them are boys, and the
majority are 9 to 14 years old. Street Children in
Mongolia: Abandoned by the State Asia Child Rights
ACR Weekly Newsletter Vol.01 No.04, 04 DEC 2002 acr.hrschool.org/mainfile.php/0104/23/ [accessed 21 June
2011] Mongolia’s streets
are home to 4000 children who live their lives doing anything from begging,
stealing, sex work to a host of other menial tasks to stay alive. Supporting Street
Children In Mongolia Save the Children
UK, 30/04/2001 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 21 June
2011] 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 Kristine Weber,
People's News Agency PNA Dispatch, 1997 www.prout.org/pna/mongolian-street-children.html [accessed 21 June
2011] 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. Mongolia: Street
Children Amid Newfound Wealth Tom Boland, 8 Nov
1998 hpn.asu.edu/archives/Nov98/0127.html [accessed 21 June
2011] This has resulted
in the phenomenon of Ulan Bator's street kids, who have been growing in
number for six years. Today, according
to the police, there are 382 children living permanently on the streets, many
refugees from abusive alcoholic parents.
The number rises occasionally to between 500 and 1,000. They beg, steal, pick-pocket, polish shoes,
carry rubbish or do other menial tasks just to stay alive. Circus Training As
An Alternative Educational System Lutaa Badamkhand,
The Independent, 26 December 2003 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 21 June
2011] To children
attending Boxing Day circuses across the world, juggling balls or balancing a
spinning plate may not seem essential for success. But 40 children in
Outer Mongolia know differently. Previously they lived in the sewers and heating
pipes systems beneath the streets of Ulan Bator where temperatures are
routinely minus 25C. Today they know that the circus offers life-saving
skills. An aid project teaching circus skills to orphans may sound odd, but
the children know that the alternative faced by Mongolia's 3,000 street
children is a life of begging and pick-pocketing. Street-Children Pay
The Price For Parliament's Neglect Michael Salguero, 2002 mglausnsw.wordpress.com/2008/05/09/foreigner-and-mn-street-kids/ [accessed 21 June
2011] According to the Sinkhat family, 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 Ulan Bator in 1990, when Socialism collapsed in Mongolia and the
democratic government promised new economic changes. What she found was a 35% unemployment rate,
newly privatized and expensive housing, and a growing population of street
children. Her family too would begin to sleep on the streets. Numbers of Street
Children in Mongolia on the Increase Phoebe Lai, Senior
Communications Officer, World Vision China Office, March 31, 1998 www.worldvision.org/worldvision/pr.nsf/stable/nv033198_mongolia2 [accessed 21 June
2011] In 1991, there were
no street children in Mongolia. Now, within a span of just five to six years,
the number has surged to 6,000. Many of these children left their poor rural homes
because of family violence and abuse. Now living on the streets in below
freezing temperatures, these children often find their homes in stairwells,
building entryways, or underground. They survive on pick-pocketing, stealing,
robbing and begging. Inside the
Children's Prison in Ulan Bator EurasiaNet.org,
March 15, 2002 www.eurasianet.org/departments/culture/articles/eav031602.shtml [accessed 21 June
2011] 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. Why Street
Children? World Vision New
Zealand mongolia.worldvision.org.nz/streetchildren.html [accessed 21 June
2011] In 1990, Mongolia
changed to a free-market economy. Russian subsidies stopped, and Russian
managers and technicians went home. Many Mongolian businesses collapsed, leaving
thousands out of work. With no hope of improving their lives, many people
turned to vodka for solace. Some
country families moved to the city to try to find work, but there were few
jobs, and costs in the city were high. Families were sometimes forced to live
on the street, or send their children out to beg or sell trinkets to help
boost the family income. Dark Side Of
Mongolia Conor O'Clery,
The Irish Times hpn.asu.edu/archives/Nov98/0127.html [accessed 21 June
2011] 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 William M. Balsamo At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 21 June
2011] Although the
children have all been taken from the sewers of Ulan Bator, not all of them
are orphans. Most of them do have parents who can no longer take care of
them. Such parents have given the Center permission to care for them, and
regularly visit their children at the home. Most of the children at the
Center are the products of poverty rather than abandonment. Catholic priest
climbs into manholes to minister to Mongolian poor Dianne Hardisty , The Bakersfield Californian, 2001 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 21 June
2011] 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. PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT
ARTICLES. Cite this webpage as: Patt,
Prof. Martin, "Street Children - Mongolia",
http://gvnet.com/streetchildren/Mongolia.htm, [accessed <date>] |
