Her er en rapport om fattige barn i Mongolia som lever fryktelig ille. Artikkelen er skrevet på engelsk.

The street children have it hard, and especially the youngest. Every day is a challenge for them. This report will help you understand the life of a street child better. It is about why it is street children in Mongolia, how they get food, where they live, how they survive and how the older groups treat the younger groups.

Why is there street children in Mongolia?

It is street children in Ulaanbaatar that is in Mongolia. It is many there because they run away from their family, home and because they don’t know where their parents are. They become street children and create groups. There are many groups, the older groups rules over the younger groups. Many of the younger groups have scars on their arms because of the older groups. They get it of the older groups that cuts bottles in two and scar them up on their arms with the bottles. There are 100 million street children in the world and there are 45 % of Mongolia is street children.


How does the street children get food?

It is very hard to get food for the street children. They starve many times for food, at least the youngest kids. The older kids smoke and they feel like they get food from it. In time they will start with alcohol and then drugs. Sometimes when they look for bottles and cans they are lucky and sometimes they are not. The street children always hope to find more cans than bottles because the cans are more worth than the bottles.

Where does the street children live?

The places the street children live is normally in manholes. Some lives between garbage and others live in dark places where they hope not to be found. Many times it happens that a police van catches the street children. Some others clean them and check them for lice and the police try to reunite them with their families. If the police don’t find their family then they place them in one of the 20 shelters in Ulaanbaatar. The place is also frightening to the small kids that haven’t been there before. It is now the same for them like before they went to the police place. It is much harder for them in the winter because it can reach down to -40*C. For they who live in manholes it is a bit easier. Some places it is easier than other places because they sleep in manholes with hot pipes they sleep on. But still it is hard for them in these conditions. Many things are hard for them in the winter. It is hard to collect bottles and cans because of the snow and the older groups may steal their money. It is very hard for them to survive the winter. Many of the kids die together in the cold trying to survive.

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.

Which environment does the street children live in?

They don’t have any nice environment they can live in. The environment they live in is terrible because it is very much garbage spread around where they live and in Ulaanbaatar. They don’t try to make it better but they clean all the bottles and cans they can get money from. They live in garbage, dark places, manholes and other places the environment is bad. They don’t like the places they live in. They always hope that their life gets better and a nice home where the environment is god.

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.

av Johan Andreas, Angola 28/10/08, kl 21:02