Child beggars in Ukraine

According to news portal UAUA.INFO, exploiting small children for begging in the streets is thriving in the biggest cities of Ukraine. It appears that it is all based on begging business chain, where the youngest are the most valuable. The younger the child is, the more profit it can generate. Police data show that in 2004 there were 1500 criminal investigations related to involving children in begging.

This problem has been recognized by Ukrainian legal science for some time now, with academics like J. Antonian and K. Ihoszew working on the issue legal qualification and prevention. Nevertheless, small children and infants have been kept out of focus and only recently specific factors making this group vulnerable to forced begging have been analyzed. Very often the children are intoxicated, malnourished, and are deprived of appropriate health care. They lack birth certificates and any other official documents, which is a violation of children's rights but, most of all, hinders their access to different protection institutions.

To address the situation divers measures are taken in Ukraine, aiming to deal with homelessness of children, abuses they experience and lack of supervision and care, among others.

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