3125 homeless children are registered In Ukraine
PARIAHS?
Have you seen their eyes? They are everywhere — near kiosks, in subway crossings, on posh sidewalks of the new Khreshchatyk and deserted streets of Borshchahivka, in basements, on benches near transport terminals and in the parks. Hungry, wearing torn clothes, unprotected, and street begging. One should be in no hurry to blame them — they are not insouciant beggars but a silent reproach of our time. They have just one weapon against the harsh reality, their outstretched hands. Overwhelmed with momentous emotions, we throw them a couple of coins in a gesture of help. But do we really help them? Can several coins solve the acute and global problem of street kids? What or who drives these little human beings out of their homes, schools, and native cities?
There are various reasons for this, says Serhiy NOVYK, head of the Kyiv Office for Minor Children, notably, family conflicts, lack of appropriate treatment at schools, deliberate or inborn callousness of adults, and lack of respect. As a result the child flees, first to friends, and then gets acquainted with groups of street kids, becoming one of them in the end.
At what age do children wind up on the streets? What awaits them there?
At various ages, ranging from 3 to 18. The bulk hit the streets between 10 and 15. What do streets have in store for them? Nothing good. While they are still children, people pity them and give money. Growing up, they begin to realize that there will be no more free rides — and they will start picking pockets themselves, wait to ambush you in doorways, on deserted streets, rape, mug, go to prison, get on the needle, and engage in prostitution. The list of job opportunities offered by the street is long and versatile. Street begging alone can bring a child an average 150 hryvnias a day.
Whom or what do the children spent their money on?
On their drinking parents and bogus guardians who do not even want to work for they are much more comfortable living off the dole earned by children during sultry summers and cold winters dressed in worn-through coats and boots without socks, instead of attending school.
There are 138 professional street beggars in Kyiv now. But they are not homeless! They have homes and parents. What kind of parents they have is a different story. Our Office For Minor Children knows and keeps track of everyone of them. The rest, about 78%, come from other cities. The only thing we can do for outsiders is to establish their identities, cities they come from, and escort them back home. All done, another problem pops up almost at once as the children are back in Kyiv even before the escort vehicle is.
Why are children attracted to Kyiv so much and what should be done, in your opinion, to stop them leaving for street begging in the capital?
First, very often their parents are without employment and children are able to earn some money in a big city like Kyiv. Second, despite the life’s hardships, problems in families, and poverty, children will never leave home if they are treated well by adults, beginning from tutors at kindergartens, teachers at schools, even their town mayors. With the number of children coming from other localities on the increase, can all the adults out there claim they have done their best to keep their children from running away?
What is the solution to the problem of vagrancy?
It can be tackled only by joint effort. They are all our children and, excuse the high flown style, the task of one and all is to spare no efforts in helping them to become good athletes, scientists, or financiers, not criminals.
SECOND HOME
A Medical and Rehabilitation Center for children run by our office is located in Bortnychi, 23 kilometers along the Boryspil highway. The center was opened on November 6, 2000, with a total of 800 children having taken a three month course of rehabilitation there. It is a four-story building designed to accommodate 100 children, with no vacant beds available. Work with children is carried out along three aspects, psychological, medical, and pedagogical. Each aspect is based on a comprehensive program. Very often tutors have to deal with withdrawn, distrustful, dispirited children who had more than their share of misery and who are at odds with social environment.
On my way to the office of Center Director Larysa Nemolovska I encounter a bunch of children arguing about something, their eyes shining with happiness and lips caught in sincere childish smiles. I recall some records in their files explaining why these children have been sent to the center, “Father convicted, mother cannot manage the child; the child is permanently in the state of nervous excitement due to constant squabbles with his stepfather; the child lives in a high-risk family; her mother drinks.” As soon as children get to the center, all wandering, rapes, and drug addiction become history. Nothing in the center can remind them of their past. I remembered the question I wanted to pose to the center director, “Can your center make up for the warmth of children’s homes?” But then I realized it was stupid to ask this question for to many children the meaning of this begins to sink in only in the center.
Their first encounter with a warm bath, clean clothes, a toothbrush, or one’s own bed takes place precisely in the center. The children learn about hot meals, attention and support from their tutors who help them recover their lost faith. Many children, despite their school age, enter classrooms, take pens, and open textbooks for the first time in their lives. They make their first clumsy drawings and poems whose meaning is clear only to their authors. But one can spot at once the struggle of the children’s fragile soul against the pain, solitude, and cruelty of the adult world.
“I got tired, got tired of fighting.
It means I got tired of living,
But I stopped to fear,
I just became cruel.
To all.
Around me is darkness,
Never will spring visit my heart,
I will be alone all my life...”
Sasha is 16. I met him before I left the center. He loves to break dance and spends a lot of time at the computer, making small animated films. He is quite a friendly boy, doing well in school and is an avid athlete. Later I learned that this is his second time in the center. He gave up his lycee to return to the center, praising his teachers and their skills so much.
Oksana, 13, is also through her second time there. It was hard to engage her in a conversation for she was very withdrawn. Making an effort to smile, she just squeezed out taciturn responses of yes, no, or I don’t know, with sorrow reflected in her eyes. Is this how she confronts reality? Or is she in need of another rehabilitation course?
“Before the children get to us they have to undergo training at the Psychological Center run by the Office For Minor Children at 23 Shevchenko Blvd.,” the director of the Medical and Rehabilitation Center says. “We are also running a psychological course. We are sure that the children are morally protected in our center. Unfortunately, when they go back to high-risk families and the streets such children are victimized even more. Thus our main problem is to ensure social tracking for the children leaving the center. But they should not be singled out and treated as someone special and unique. This is a mistake we have no right to make.
“Following a three-month rehabilitation course, in accordance with our tradition the children pin their wish notes to a special wish tree. Let me quote some, ‘I want to have a good family,’ ‘The center has become my second home,’ ‘I am so sorry to part with my friends,’ ‘I want to stay here forever,’ etc. On leaving the center, children are presented with soft toys, just to bring back the old days.
INCIDENTALLY
According to the statistics by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in the first six months of 2001 homeless children committed 7961 crimes, including 94 cases of premeditated murder, 126 cases of premeditated injuries, 424 burglary attacks, 962 muggings, and 43 rapes. The number of adults who put children up to committing crimes is 1571, to street begging 641.
