Traffickers profit from vulnerability of street children in Mongolia
Traffickers profit from vulnerability of street children in Mongolia
by Daryhand Bayar, UNICEF Mongolia
Mongolia’s peaceful transition to democracy since the mid-1990s after 70 years of communism has brought many positive changes to the country. But it has also resulted in negative impacts such as a dramatic rise in the number of children living and working on the streets and an increased risk that children will be trafficked for sexual and other purposes, including through adoption. Although there is insufficient hard evidence to date, it seems highly likely that many of the children in Mongolia who become victims of traffickers are those who spend much time on the street and are most deprived of protection.
As a new concept and phenomenon in Mongolia, there is no equivalent for the term ‘trafficking’ in the Mongol language. But while there are no officially registered cases of trafficking in the country, there are more and more reports of children and young people being trafficked (often, by people they already know), and studies indicate that high levels of unemployment and poverty have set the preconditions for the spread of this crime.
According to a survey conducted by Mongolia’s Centre for Human Rights and Development (CHRD), street children and unemployed youth are prime targets for traffickers. In Mongolia, estimates by various agencies and studies put the number of street children at about 3700 to 4000, a situation that was unheard of before Mongolia experienced the flow-on effects of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Some of these children spend part of their time on the streets doing odd jobs, such as working as porters, shining shoes and collecting bottles or other items from garbage to sell. Other children beg to support themselves and their families. Many live in underground sewer tunnels and pipes (known as manholes) that provide hot water to people’s homes. There, the children seek refuge from winter temperatures that can sometimes drop to minus 40 degrees Centigrade (minus 104 degrees Fahrenheit).
The main causes that have pushed Mongolian children onto the streets are poverty, unemployment, an increasing incidence of alcoholism in the home, domestic violence and family breakdown, all of which have increased in tandem with the uncertainties that afflict communities in times of rapid and difficult transition. More than 36 per cent of the population is classified as poor or very poor, and almost 48 per cent of children live in vulnerable, poor and very poor families where their parents are likely to be unemployed. In concert with the country’s shift from a state-controlled economy to a market economy has come rapid urban expansion, which has not been matched by a complementary expansion of social services in urban centres such as the capital, Ulaanbaatar.
Many rural families are increasingly migrating back to the cities because of environmental hardship caused by dzud (or disaster, such as winter snow storms) and difficulties in raising livestock. Many of these difficulties, including overgrazing, are connected to the economic changes experienced by the country through the 1990s. The loss of jobs caused by new privatisation measures and the collapse of businesses saw many people turn to herding to generate an income. Now, as they and longer-term rural dwellers return to the cities, their chances of finding sustaining work remain low.
About half the population of 2.7 million now lives in towns, and unplanned migration and urbanisation have had an adverse impact on access to and the quality of basic social services such as education, child care and health care. Children of migrant families are especially vulnerable. They often work long hours inside and outside the family. Many work alongside their parents in the informal sector to contribute to the family income. Others drop out of school while yet others are denied access to education and health care services because their parents cannot pay the registration fee required when they join new municipalities. Some end up living on the streets.
According to an assessment by UNICEF of street and unsupervised children, migrant girls who live and/or work on the streets are often recruited into prostitution. Research by CHRD indicates that highly organised criminals take advantage of the girls’ vulnerability on the streets and force them down this path in order to profit from their exploitation. The organisers are not necessarily unknown to the girls – they are often family members or other girls who have previously engaged in prostitution. The rate of prostitution is highest in Ulaanbaatar, but it is also prevalent in provinces near Mongolia’s borders. The implication is that children forced into prostitution in these provinces may also become victims of cross-border trafficking.
In addition, police and staff with the Children’s Nursing Organisations believe that traffickers could transport children across borders by pretending that a child is to be adopted by foreigners. According to data gathered by Mongolia’s National Centre against Violence, there are also unconfirmed reports that children have indeed been sold by their parents for adoption to foreigners. Either way, poor border controls mean that mechanisms for tracking and documenting the likelihood of children returning after they leave the country (with their parents or others) are very weak. In this sense, there are also indications that Mongolia is becoming not only a source country for child victims of trafficking, but also a transit country.
Mongolia’s Parliament has ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. The Government has also taken action to set up a legal environment to protect children and their rights, including devising its National Programme of Action for the Development and Protection of Children, 2002-2010. But harmonisation of national law with the Protocol is yet to be undertaken, and Mongolia’s existing Criminal Code and Criminal Procedures Code do not yet reflect the Protocol’s principle of ensuring that all perpetrators of commercial sexual exploitation of children are pursued and prosecuted as criminals while their victims are not treated as criminals and permitted to enjoy their right to child-friendly judicial procedures.
In addition, there is a need for legal provisions that specifically address the rights of street children and their especially acute need for protection, building on the momentum generated by the work of many non-government organisations and other agencies on this front, including the initiation of several national consultative meetings on the rights and protection of street children. The particular vulnerability of children on the street to traffickers makes it imperative that Mongolia sign and implement the UN Protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children, supplementing the Convention against Transnational Organised Crime, which provides a framework for international cooperation in combating the trafficking of children for sexual purposes. Nevertheless, there now are at least provisions for a prison sentence of five to eight years if a person is found to have sold a child.
It is difficult to estimate the true scale of trafficking in Mongolia, and especially in relation to street children. But the problem of trafficking is no longer shrouded in silence, and the Government and non-government organisations are making an effort to take concrete steps against trafficking and the commercial sexual exploitation of children, which – along with the increasing numbers of children on the streets and otherwise at risk – have become such a serious cause for concern amid the difficulties facing a country in transition.
