Blame & Banishment - Médecins du Monde

Blame and Banishment: The underground HIV epidemic affecting children in Eastern Europe and Central Asia
Pathways to the streets…
With the greater democratization of
society since the 1990s, the issue of street
children has become more visible, partly
due to lesser state controls and increased
availability of data. Throughout the region,
the number of street children increased as
a result of the pressures of rapid social
change and economic adversity. Extreme
poverty continues to push children onto the
streets so that they can earn money rather
than go to school. A 2008 study of street
children in four cities in Georgia revealed
that 90 per cent had to earn an income
for themselves or their families. Half of all
street children were illiterate and 60 per
cent never entered a classroom. 35
Taras, 17, cries after Denis, 12, who was not able to find a vein to inject him a self-made
drug based on ephedrine, known as ‘baltoushka’. Photographed in an abandoned house where
they lived in Odessa, Ukraine, on 16 June 2006. Taras died of an overdose in 2008. Denis’
whereabouts are unknown.
While there are no reliable estimates
of how many children are without adult
supervision, living and/or working on the
streets, experts agree there are probably
over one million in the region. 36 The
large majority end up on the street as a
result of running away from physical and
psychological abuse within families, or
from state-run orphanages and shelters.
Many children in state-run institutions
are ‘social orphans’, meaning they have
a living parent whose parental rights
were taken away either because of
alcohol, drug use or legal problems with
the authorities. Domestic violence and
alcoholism among parents are frequent
causes of homelessness among children in
the Russian Federation. 37
© M. Novotny
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