WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2001
Russia has 1 million street children: Deputy PM
MOSCOW: About 1 million children are living on the streets in Russia, providing fertile ground for juvenile crime including growing drug use, a top Russian official said on Tuesday.
Valentina Matviyenko, the deputy prime minister responsible for social affairs, told regional welfare officials that after a dip last year, juvenile crime had started an upward climb again in the first 10 months of 2001. More than 30,000 children were detained after committing crimes in 2000, she said, and police recorded 145,700 juvenile crimes in the first 10 months of this year, according to the Interfax news agency.
Police have registered 242,000 negligent parents and about 43,000 were stripped of their parental rights last year, Matviyenko said. In addition to the street children, more than 360,000 children are truants, failing to attend school.
"This isn't merely a problem of money, though there is always a money problem in social welfare," Matviyenko said in remarks broadcast on Russian state television.
"This is mainly a problem of care, responsibility and the normal organization of work," she said, adding that agencies dealing with children had to coordinate their work better.
Matviyenko noted an increase in the number of sexual crimes committed against minors and in children's drug use. She said that Moscow in particular had become a magnet for homeless children, and proposed that officials in the capital gather children living in train stations, the subway and markets before criminals did, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. ( AP )
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