Young suffer from capitalism in eastern Europe
Young people in eastern Europe can be forgiven for not celebrating the triumph of the "market economy". According to a report released by the United Nations Children's Fund on April 21, there are now a million children in care in eastern Europe, hundreds of thousands live on the streets, drug and alcohol abuse is at record levels and child prostitution and sexual abuse are increasing at an alarming rate.
The report's main author goes so far as to say that children's quality of life and human rights were greater under "communism". "In many ways they are worse off [since 1989], and this is a scandal", charged Gaspar Fajth.
"If you compare the material situation of children then and now, you could say they were better off", said UNICEF official John Mickelwright, who began to backtrack when the implications of the report hit home. "This does not mean that communism is better for children. These are countries in transition, and the question is where they end up — as relatively more hostile to children, as in Latin America, or more friendly, as in western Europe."
The report says that the coming of capitalism introduced mass unemployment: 4.8 million jobs have disappeared in central Europe since 1989, 2.2 million in south-east Europe and 13.2 million in the former Soviet Union. The number of children living in poverty has risen drastically in the past six years. Nutritional standards have dived and the prevalence of stunted growth has jumped.
Sexually transmitted diseases are on the increase among 14-17-year-olds, especially in the Baltic states and the countries in the western part of the former Soviet Union. Syphilis is common in the region, after being virtually eradicated in the 1980s.
The number of alcohol-related problems among Russian adolescents has jumped from 14.8 per 1000 youths in 1990 to 27.3 in 1994. Glue-sniffing has become common to most schools.
The huge increase in the population of street children has led to much greater sexual exploitation of minors. In Riga, the Latvian capital, 6% of prostitutes were under the age of 15 in 1989. Now 24% are minors. More than 1000 Romanian boys are working as prostitutes in Berlin.