Street Children of Mongolia.

http://www.cncf.org/en/news/view.php?id=1264

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/International/story?id=1350000

"Children’s rights? We have nothing. We’re just like human garbage. Nobody needs us. Anyone can come and beat us. I want to go to a place where there is no beating. Recently children from that house [points to a residential apartment block nearby] came over and hit us all for no reason. The police come to us only if a theft happens nearby. They take us to the police station where they beat and beat demanding we confess to stealing. They force us to sit on a stool like this [arches his back] and then beat us with batons. Or they tie you tightly on a bench, insert a wooden pole between the legs, right below the crotch and then start rolling it... so-o-o painful.

Once, right when they were doing this to me, a police officer came in. ‘What are you doing?’ ‘He has stolen things,’ answered the man hurting me. I screamed ‘I did not steal anything. They torture me, telling to admit that I did.’ The officer ordered them to release me. This happened last year. Now the police are a bit quiet. Once in a while they come over our pit, look inside with flashlights and ask if we have knives or other weapons.

People rarely help us. Most are suspicious of us, thinking we are all thieves. There is a man named Ochir who lives nearby and operates a depot where people give bottles and cans. He is a very good man. Often he allows us to sleep at the depot building. Even brings in a TV set. Channel 25’s programme about computer games is good. Once I saw a programme by Gurbazar [a popular TV journalist] where twins – both now old women – meet after many years apart.

All people want to have a good life. I do not know what my life will be like when I grow up. I am afraid that I will die one day with my whole life spent like this, collecting bottles. Life is given only once and I am scared that I will see no good times." (http://www.newint.org/issue377/dolgion.htm)

Street children in Mongolia....it is such a tragic story. Some people wouldn't even believe things like this exist, but it does - and it's heartbreaking. Just reading these stories or seeing the videos on youtube touches my heart. When I was younger and lived in Mongolia, I didn't really feel bad for them. I don't know if it was my young age, or just the fact that I had grown up in this type of reality where there were street children everywhere, and that was just the norm. But now that I am removed from this reality, and placed in a different one where there are hardly any such cases, I can really look back and realize the tragedy of this story. One day once I have gained the money and the power I will go back and help decrease this population of kids.

While I was reading these stories I keep going over the same type of story with each one. Most of these homeless children ran away from home because they were so abused mentally and physically by their parents or caregivers. They were abused and beaten so badly that it was better to live out on the street with no money, food, or shelter - than stay at home. What does that say about the adults in Mongolia? There must be some pretty terrible beatings going on...
I don't know why but I think it's in the Mongolian tradition and culture to physically punish the children. Most every Mongolian child I know has been beaten in their lifetime by their parents, and that is a natural way of raising a child in Mongolia. It's sad because even though the kids were physically abused and they suffer a lot from the emotional and mental damages of the beatings, they grow up and do the same things to their children too. I think it is one big habit that is difficult to break.

Medical and psychological research has shown that beating a child is not the right way to discipline them, in fact it is one of the worst ways you can discipline your child:

"Based on the principles of aversive therapy, inflicting pain through spanking causes a dramatic short-term decrease in the behavior. However, there are serious flaws in this approach: (1) it teaches children that violence is acceptable; (2) it may physically harm the child if it is the result of parental rage; and (3) children become “accustomed” to spanking, requiring more severe corporal punishment each time. Spanking can result in severe physical and psychologic injury, and it interferes with effective parent-child interaction. In addition, when the parent is not around, the misbehavior is likely to occur, since children have not learned to behave well for their own sake. Parental use of corporal punishment may also interfere with the child's development of moral reasoning." (Wong's Essential of Pediatric Nursing)

So basically beating your child will:
- Teach them that violence is acceptable (which explains why if you were beaten in your
childhood, it instantly becomes normal and acceptable to you and it's more likely for you to beat your children when you grow up)
- Interferes with your interaction with the child and builds up walls between you and them
because now they are so scared of you why would they want to share anything with you about their thoughts or feelings?
- It's not successful in changing the behavior that you were trying to change
- And it will affect their moral reasoning...and they will probably believe that physical abuse is okay, and that it is okay to hit or punch their loved ones too.

So...anyways, getting back to the first point about homeless children in Mongolia, I was just trying to say that to decrease so many children from going out into the streets depends on the parents and caregivers. The children are on the streets because they are not in a safe or loving home environment and they run away. I read that about 4,000 children are on the streets, but this may have decreased by now, hopefully. But 4,000? That is a lot of parents who are beating their kids so badly that they would want to run away!

The parents/caregivers may be beating their children because of the difficult conditions of living in Mongolia presently with the break from the Communist government and the attempt to build a Democratic one, but still...they shouldn't take it out on the children.

I really hope these homeless children in Mongolia will decrease in the future, and more of them will find a safe, caring home atmosphere where they can grow up in. I know I will help in the future, and I also wish that more young Mongolian students like me studying or working in different countries will go back one day and contribute to their home country.