In-depth Analysis of the Situation of Working Street Children in Moscow

Summary

In today’s Russia street children are becoming a prominent social problem.
Over the last ten years, as the country struggled with sweeping economic decline
and a shift in values, it has also had to cope with a side effect of this massive
transformation: homeless and neglected children. Away from home, deprived
of shelter and parental care, these children are becoming a new cheap workforce
and easy prey for the rampant criminal world.

Today, both the state and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are striving to respond adequately to the problem. Yet it is evident that there is not enough capacity to tackle it. The community remains largely ignorant of and passive towards it. This report
reflects one of the few initial attempts at in-depth analysis of the street children
situation in Moscow, the capital and industrial centre of the country.