CHILDREN FIGHT BY HABIT

Last Tuesday was the Day of Destroying Military Toys. Many countries held peace actions organized on the initiative of the World Association to Support Children, Deprived of Parental Care and Orphans.

A young woman was weeping silently near the cashier's desk in the Dytiachy Svit (Children's World) toys section. Her husband was standing nearby, shrugging his shoulders in surprise. A few minutes earlier he had bought his son a pistol shooting with rubber bullets and, eager to test it in operation «shot « his own wife. The process turned out to be highly painful.

When picking a gift for her son in Dytiachy Svit, Tetiana, a mother of nine years seniority, said she was not afraid of buying a toy weapon for her child. Boys will be boys, she said, and they will never stop playing war. To her mind, such a game provides an outlet for negative energy, nothing more. In addition, when observing [Ukrainian] children play, one may notice one thing: the boys always want to fight on the side of the good, for «our side», and not for the Germans.

Director of the Dytiachy Svit subsidiary Kazka (Fairy Tale) Oleksy KAZANSKY told The Day , one should distinguish between military and collectable toys. Swords, bows and arrows, rapiers, and doublets are, after all, our history. Models of tanks, aircraft, warships, and toy soldiers from the American Civil War is a serious hobby not only for children, but also for respectable gentlemen. As to classical military toys of Ukrainian make (quite popular in the USSR during the Cold War), you will no longer find them in Kyiv stores. The producers we were able to contact, answered no to the question if they manufacture military toys, saying they make little of anything.

Director of the Peremoha (Victory) Toy Factory Volodymyr BOKANIUK said that for the last three years his factory has actually been idle, for there have been no finances to fulfill plans. «For instance,» recalls Bokaniuk, «once we wanted to put into serial production a Ukrainian Barbie doll named Oksana. We developed the prototype, but failed to settle the banal issue of money. Thus, Oksana died even before being born although Ukrainian girls could have got their long-awaited beauty for much cheaper.»

As a result, foreign goods prevail in Ukrainian children's stores (according to the Kazka director, domestically made toys account for no more than 5% of total sales volume). «Children's weapons» are mostly represented by China and occupy one or two small stands. The look of a macho policeman's set of handcuffs and sticks, or electronic submachine guns produced (like many computer games) based on films like Star Wars would startle you. The stand attracts both children and adults, despite all the initiatives by international organizations.

EXPERTS COMMENT

Mykola KORNEV, Ph.D. in psychology and Chairman of the Social Psychology Department at the Shevchenko National University in Kyiv told The Day's Oleksandr MYKHELSON that experts do not have a shared opinion about the impact of military toys on a child's mind. «For normal development of a child, games and toys are necessary. But tin soldiers and modern sets with plastic handcuffs or guns that shoot plastic bullets are two quite different things. When playing, children learn, and quite fast at that. And, naturally, they begin to regard shooting at another person as a game. This is potentially dangerous. Recall the recent events in an American school (when teenagers shot their fellow students from actual weapons — Ed.). Today we need to establish public control over the production and distribution of military toys, especially those that quite well imitate modern arms.»