Twelve-year-old Karine is the youngest of the family’s four children. They lived in a rented apartment, her mother had no job; she was forced to beg at first, then sell flowers. According to Karine, nobody forced her to go begging. The girl gave the money she earned to her mother. “I knew that it wasn’t right for a child to sell flowers but I was forced to. Now I won’t anymore,” Karine told me frankly. When I asked how much money she would make selling flowers she said 300 drams a day, sometimes 500-800 drams. Sometimes she would just give the flowers away to passers-by.

Eleven-year-old Arman was forced to sell flowers because of hard times. Arman’s mother sells flowers along with him. Arman doesn’t see anything wrong with it because, as he says, “I don’t steal and I don’t beg.”

Ten- year-old Anna ended up on the streets because of her family situation. She doesn’t have a father and her mother is an alcoholic. She is forced to earn her daily bread.

Sophia Shesternenko, who works in the New Armenia (Nor Hayastan) Humanitarian Assistance Center, says, “Street children dislike doctors and journalist most of all.” Most attempts to get close to them are doomed to failure, because their instinct for self-preservation alerts them to the fact that you are a journalist and makes them unwilling to answer your questions. According to psychologists, street children get used to the social environment they find themselves in very quickly, but at the same time they face serious problems. That’s why it’s very hard to gain their trust.

How and why do children end up on the streets?

To what extent is the exploitation of child labor widespread in Armenia? According to Armen Lisikyan, director of the Children's Reception Center of the Fund For Armenian Relief (FAR), between February 2000 and December 31, 2002, 604 children were brought in. 60% of the children that police find in the streets and bring in to the center are successfully returned to their families, and 40% are transferred to special institutions. There are children that have been brought in two, three, or more times, though not many. The staff of the center does not deny that exploitation of child labor exists in Armenia. But according social worker Mira Antonyan, “The center does not completely mirror reality, and we are informed about the phenomenon to the extent that we have the opportunity to deal with children found in the streets” Antonyan says that the children considered “waifs” in the classical sense are few. In most cases, children leave their homes for a couple of days to beg or engage in prostitution and then go back. “As a rule, it’s the parents who exploit the children’s labor,” Antonyan says.

According to child psychologists, the street children can be divided into four groups: 1. The most common, children who beg at their own will. 2. Children who beg out of extreme necessity, 3. Children who accompany begging with work (street prostitution). 4. Children who beg at the instigation of adults. These last seek outside connections to avoid returning home. Forced begging can involve boys in criminal gangs and girls in prostitution.

In the New Armenia Center, they divide children found in the streets into the following groups: children who lack supervision (28%), children who contribute to the family budget (45%), children who have psychological problems (25%), orphans (2%). 27% of the children are encouraged to beg or to engage in prostitution by their parents or other close relatives, 27% go on the streets to earn money on their own, because they are needy, 8% lack supervision, 17% go to the streets because a negative family situation, 10% under the influence of the environment, 2% by chance, and 9% have psychological problems.

Social worker Sophia Shesternenko says that the exploitation of child labor is mainly manifested in flower-selling and peddling. The children give a portion of the money to they parents and keep the remainder for themselves. There are cases, however, when a child feels that he’s being cheated by the parents and becomes deeply frustrated. The staff at of the New Armenia center assures us that they usually achieve their goal - returning children to their families.

A street child is a victim

“Very often we blame the children who beg and their parents. I think that’s not fair,” says Samuel Hanryon, who heads of the local office of the organization Medecins Sans Frontieres. Meetings with the children and their parents have convinced Hanryon that most of them are driven to the streets by hopelessness and extreme poverty. There are families where parents are unemployed, get into debt, and are forced to send their children out to beg. According to Hanryon, 90% of street children go home to their families. “Fortunately, there are no children who constantly spend the night in the street,” he says.

Medecins Sans Frontieres, which works to get street children back home, has included 200-250 children in its Prevention project, offering them alternatives. The head of the mission observes the two-thirds of the children go on the streets because they don’t have strong family ties. There are 600 participants in the project -- children and their relatives - that the organization works with. The majority of these children’s parents are very poor or are single mothers. They don’t have any outside support and are forced to send their children out to beg.

Hanryon also noted that the number of children who beg permanently has decreased, more often you see seasonal beggars. Hanryon takes a strong stance on the children’s fate: “A child who begs is a victim, because he is a tool in the hands of others. A child who begs should not be sent to a children's home. He should be placed in an institution only if his family or his environment represent a danger for the child. After all, the child who begs in the streets is no different from other children. The street is no place for a child. Children who beg need society’s support more than others.” According to Hanryon it is not these children, who are exploited, that are a danger to the society, but those who break the law.

Deputy Minister of Social Security Karine Hakobyan informed us that no state program to prevent the exploitation of child labor has been implemented. And if child begging has decreased it is only through the efforts of NGOs.