By Sanjay Suri
LONDON, Jun 2 2005 (IPS)

More than a million children across Europe and Central Asia could be facing abuse – while in care facilities – UNICEF says. And that figure is only a conservative estimate.

More than a million children across Europe and Central Asia could be facing abuse – while in care facilities – UNICEF says.

”That figure of a million is only a conservative estimate,” United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) spokeswoman Angela Hawke told IPS. ”There are large data gaps that make children invisible and their problems invisible.”

The estimates are built around a figure of 605,000 children said to be in residential facilities in Eastern Europe and the five Central Asian Republics (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) in 2002, Hawke said.

The remaining were believed to be in Western Europe. Across Europe and the Central Asian Republics the totals would include child migrants, young offenders, asylum-seekers and other such categories.

An estimated 200,000 of the children are from the Central Asian Republics, with most from Kazakhstan, the largest country among them.

The categories themselves remain somewhat vague. Children within residential care include those abandoned by parents, children who needed shelter because of poverty in the family, and those escaping abuse.

The uncertainty itself presents a major difficulty, Hawke said. ”If you don’t know how many children you’re talking about, how do you assess the problems they face? How do you assess how many are subject to violence?”

The questions are being raised ahead of a United Nations consultation on violence against children in Europe and Central Asia to take place in Slovenia early next month. The consultation will feed into a wider UN study on violence against children due out in 2006.

But the UNICEF study so far indicates not just an information gap today, but that the gap between the difficulty and the awareness of it has been continuing for generations.

A government commission in Ireland that was set up to inquire into child abuse drew so many complaints that final publication of the report has been put off until 2008, Hawke said.

UNICEF reports that of the first 3,000 complaints, about 60 percent were from people older than 50 who were abused as children in institutions. That is an indication ”that this problem has been invisible for a very long time,” Hawke said.

The UN agency is also setting out to look into the particular stages when children in supposed care are most at risk. ”It seems that the riskiest time is when a child is first arrested,” Hawke said. ”As they progress through the system they could become less at risk, but we’re not sure.”

UNICEF officials acknowledge that care can mean anything but that.

”Children in residential institutions – from children’s homes to detention centres – are desperately vulnerable,” Maria Calivis, UNICEF regional director for Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States said in a statement. ”They are vulnerable because they are separated from society in a ‘closed’ environment. And the more closed that environment is, the greater the risk of violence and the smaller the chance that it will be reported.”

Calivis said: ”We have to remember that things have already gone badly wrong for the children who end up in institutions. They are already scarred by family troubles and that only increases their vulnerability.”

UNICEF says that while abuse continues, many countries have no systems in place to check it. The UNICEF committee on the rights of the child has expressed concern at the lack of a clear ban on corporal punishment in institutions in Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Kyrgyzstan and Moldova.

It found abuse in varying forms right across the region. A report on Kazakhstan shows that 80 percent of children in residential schools are treated cruelly, UNICEF says. Interviews with children in institutions in the UK found that 62 out of 71 reported physical violence between children. Half had experienced physical violence ranging from knife attacks, kicks and punches, to damage to their personal property and threats.

UNICEF is calling on the ministers attending the July consultation on children and violence to:

– Legislate to ban all forms of violence against all children in all settings – institutions, schools, the home and the community;

– Ensure that the institutionalisation or detention of children is a measure of last resort;

– Set in motion the region-wide gathering of consistent, comparable and disaggregated data on children in institutions;

– Screen staff working with these children, pay them properly and ensure that they are qualified to deal with the tensions and conflicts that can erupt into violence;

– Create effective complaints channels for children in institutions and make sure that the children know about them;

– Ensure that these children have regular contact with their own families, unless this would put them at risk.

Excerpt:

By Sanjay Suri
LONDON, Jun 2 2005 (IPS)

More than a million children across Europe and Central Asia could be facing abuse – while in care facilities – UNICEF says.

”That figure of a million is only a conservative estimate,” United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) spokeswoman Angela Hawke told IPS. ”There are large data gaps that make children invisible and their problems invisible.”

The estimates are built around a figure of 605,000 children said to be in residential facilities in Eastern Europe and the five Central Asian Republics (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) in 2002, Hawke said.

The remaining were believed to be in Western Europe. Across Europe and the Central Asian Republics the totals would include child migrants, young offenders, asylum-seekers and other such categories.

An estimated 200,000 of the children are from the Central Asian Republics, with most from Kazakhstan, the largest country among them.

The categories themselves remain somewhat vague. Children within residential care include those abandoned by parents, children who needed shelter because of poverty in the family, and those escaping abuse.

The questions are being raised ahead of a United Nations consultation on violence against children in Europe and Central Asia to take place in Slovenia early next month. The consultation will feed into a wider UN study on violence against children due out in 2006.

But the UNICEF study so far indicates not just an information gap today, but that the gap between the difficulty and the awareness of it has been continuing for generations.

A government commission in Ireland that was set up to inquire into child abuse drew so many complaints that final publication of the report has been put off until 2008, Hawke said.

UNICEF reports that of the first 3,000 complaints, about 60 percent were from people older than 50 who were abused as children in institutions. That is an indication ”that this problem has been invisible for a very long time,” Hawke said.

The UN agency is also setting out to look into the particular stages when children in supposed care are most at risk. ”It seems that the riskiest time is when a child is first arrested,” Hawke said. ”As they progress through the system they could become less at risk, but we’re not sure.”

UNICEF officials acknowledge that care can mean anything but that.

”Children in residential institutions – from children’s homes to detention centres – are desperately vulnerable,” Maria Calivis, UNICEF regional director for Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States said in a statement. ”They are vulnerable because they are separated from society in a ‘closed’ environment. And the more closed that environment is, the greater the risk of violence and the smaller the chance that it will be reported.”

Calivis said: ”We have to remember that things have already gone badly wrong for the children who end up in institutions. They are already scarred by family troubles and that only increases their vulnerability.”

UNICEF says that while abuse continues, many countries have no systems in place to check it. The UNICEF committee on the rights of the child has expressed concern at the lack of a clear ban on corporal punishment in institutions in Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Kyrgyzstan and Moldova.

It found abuse in varying forms right across the region. A report on Kazakhstan shows that 80 percent of children in residential schools are treated cruelly, UNICEF says. Interviews with children in institutions in the UK found that 62 out of 71 reported physical violence between children. Half had experienced physical violence ranging from knife attacks, kicks and punches, to damage to their personal property and threats.

UNICEF is calling on the ministers attending the July consultation on children and violence to:

– Legislate to ban all forms of violence against all children in all settings – institutions, schools, the home and the community;

– Ensure that the institutionalisation or detention of children is a measure of last resort;

– Set in motion the region-wide gathering of consistent, comparable and disaggregated data on children in institutions;

– Screen staff working with these children, pay them properly and ensure that they are qualified to deal with the tensions and conflicts that can erupt into violence;

– Create effective complaints channels for children in institutions and make sure that the children know about them;

– Ensure that these children have regular contact with their own families, unless this would put them at risk.

Excerpt: