Torture in [Mongolia] [other countries]Human Trafficking in [Mongolia] [other countries]Street Children in [Mongolia Child Prostitution in [Mongolia] [other countries] |
Prevalence, Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the early years of the 21st
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situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLES *** Street Children Remain Neglected Damien Dawson, 06 April 2007 This article has been archived by World
Street Children News and may possibly still be accessible [here] [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,
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 Homeless Kids Fight For Survival
Underground Menaced by Sinister Jobless Adults Kentaro Kurihara,
The Asahi Shimbun, www.asahi.com/english/world/TKY200503050152.html [accessed 21 June 2011] ``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 ***
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] The study
Perception, Trends, and Nature of Child Prostitution, conducted in 2001 in 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
– www.unicef.org/infobycountry/mongolia.html [accessed 21 June 2011] The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor 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 Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/62653.htm [accessed 21 February 2011] 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 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 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 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 Kent Treptow, The
Daily Pilot, July 12, 2008 [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 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 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 Kent Treptow, The
Daily Pilot, July 12, 2008 [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 Kent Treptow, The
Daily Pilot, July 12, 2008 [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. Street Children Remain Neglected Damien Dawson, 06 April 2007 This article has been archived by World Street
Children News and may possibly still be accessible [here] [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. Nurturing Other Precious Resources The Australian, April 05, 2007 [accessed 12 October 2012] Today she is better
known as Didi Kalika, an Ananda Marga nun with intense
blue eyes, who came to Mongolians suffer wrath of winter blight Robert B. Gilbert, Seattlepi,
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 Traffickers profit from vulnerability of
street children in Mongolia Daryhand Bayar, United
Nations Children's Fund UNICEF This article has been archived by World
Street Children News and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 21 June 2011] Information about Street Children - 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, 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 Street Children in acr.hrschool.org/mainfile.php/0104/23/ [accessed 21 June 2011] Supporting Street Children In Save the Children 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 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. Homeless Kids Fight For Survival
Underground Menaced by Sinister Jobless Adults Kentaro Kurihara,
The Asahi Shimbun, www.asahi.com/english/world/TKY200503050152.html [accessed 21 June 2011] ``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 Tom Boland, 8 Nov 1998 hpn.asu.edu/archives/Nov98/0127.html [accessed 21 June 2011] This has resulted
in the phenomenon of 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 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 Numbers of Street Children in Phoebe Lai, Senior Communications Officer,
World Vision www.worldvision.org/worldvision/pr.nsf/stable/nv033198_mongolia2 [accessed 21 June 2011] In 1991, there were
no street children in Inside the
Children's Prison in 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 mongolia.worldvision.org.nz/streetchildren.html [accessed 21 June 2011] In 1990, Dark Side Of 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. 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 Catholic priest climbs into manholes to
minister to Mongolian poor Dianne Hardisty ,
The 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 - |
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