One Thousand Homeless Children Grow Up on the Streets

24 November 2005

The Institute for Social Work and Policies at the Faculty of Philosiphy in Skopje, with the support of the UNICEF Office in Macedonia, presented the report Evaluation of Policies, Situation and Programmes for the Street Children. The report was prepared by professor Divna Lakinska.

1,000 children live on the streets in Macedonia

Over one thousand children in Macedonia spend their childhood on the street, washing windshields at the traffic lights, sell illegal or untaxed goods, beg and search for discarded metal in the dust-bins.

These children are completely outside the system of education, and if they do go to school, their results are sub-par. The personal hygiene and health is catastrophic. The majority of homeless children are Roma, but there are also Albanian and Macedonian children.

The Head of the UNICEF Office in Macedonia, Hongway Gao, said that the Ministry of Labour and Social Policies invests great effort to solve the problem of these children, and reminded that a Day-care Centre for these children was established last year in Skopje.

However, Gao said that the Day-care Centre is not intended as a long-term solution for the problem. The reduction of the number of children left on the street, or the eventual total elimination of that problem would require the elimination of the causes that have led to such grave economic situation, through cooperation of the relevant institutions with NGO sector and the local self-government.

Stevce Jakimovski, Minister of Labour and Social Policies, said that the Ministry plans to establish at least two more centres in Skopje, and that the cooperation with UNICEF Macedonia will be crucial to implement that plan.

At the moment, the Ministry, together with UNICEF Macedonia is involved in a series of activities for registration of the children and evaluation of their needs and the needs of their families. These activities should assist the creation of social care programmes for these children.

The Report was prepared on the basis of a survey conducted in December 2004, on a sample of 500 children in 14 cities and townships in Macedonia, including the eight urban municipalities in Skopje.