Letter to the Editor: More support and better solutions needed for Georgia's street children
To the Editor,
I spent several months this year volunteering for the Mkurnali "Healer" Association in Tbilisi, an NGO that provides humanitarian aid, legal assistance, and vocational training to street children and children in prisons. Mkurnali is sort of a “mom and pop” NGO that has had some great results with very few financial resources.
Accompanying vice president Nino Chubabria to police stations, the Avchala prison, and court, I observed her juvenile defense project at work. The project, started in 2005 and staffed solely by Ms Chubabria and Lela Abashmadze, is the only program of its kind in Tbilisi. Operating completely without funding, Mkurnali has successfully rescued dozens of children from the criminal justice system. Mkurnali has also been running successful vocational training workshops and providing a free lunch for street children for seven years.
There are very few places for street children in Georgia to go. The government’s Gldani shelter in Tbilisi has been mired in scandal from its conception. Only 20 out of the estimated 1200 street children in Tbilisi are staying at the shelter, which has 47 beds and employs a staff of 35. The children stay away because a disconcerting number of them end up being sent from the shelter straight to jail for petty reasons. With no refuge to be found, Georgia's street children become trapped in a cycle of poverty and crime.
There are many parallels between the current Georgian criminal justice system and the Stalin-era gulags: pressure from a high government source to make arrests, regular police intimidation to sign false confessions, absurd convictions, unreasonable sentences for petty crimes, and severely overcrowded prisons. Street children in Georgia suffer disproportionately under the government's zero tolerance frenzy to arrest criminals. When the real perpetrators cannot be found, it is often easier to accuse a homeless child then it is to explain an unsolved crime.
UNICEF reports that higher and higher percentages of juveniles are going to prison for petty theft in Georgia and are receiving longer prison sentences by the courts. The Avchala juvenile prison population swelled from 150 to 210 in just a few months this year. It is alarmingly common for a hungry child in Georgia to go to prison for seven years for stealing a wheel of cheese to eat. This kind of theft is treated as a criminal problem by the government, but in reality it a humanitarian one.
Once in prison conditions are grim. Eighty boys were moved in August from the Avchala juvenile prison to Rustavi adult prison No. 2 as a punishment for a disturbance. Some of the children moved to Rustavi were as young as 14, committed crimes as minor as stealing a pair of socks, and had nothing to do with the Avchala disturbance. In Rustavi the children have spent three long months languishing in locked cells without proper ventilation 23.5 hours a day. The Rustavi prison, which does not supply clean drinking water, adequate nutrition or sanitation to inmates, made it almost impossible for the families to visit their children, who were rumored to be abused by prison guards.
It simply does not serve the Georgian people to pay for a child to languish in prison for seven years for stealing a pair of socks. A much better solution is a community service program, picking up rubbish in Tbilisi's public parks, for example. Until the government takes a humane approach towards juvenile justice, it is more important then ever to support the NGOs that provide humanitarian relief, education and legal assistance to Georgia's vulnerable street children and economically disadvantaged youth.
Tawnya Ferbiak
Boulder, Colorado
Tawnya Ferbiak is founder of a US-based non profit organization which assists socially disadvantaged Georgian youths. The organization can be contacted at info@georgianyouthrescue.org.
I spent several months this year volunteering for the Mkurnali "Healer" Association in Tbilisi, an NGO that provides humanitarian aid, legal assistance, and vocational training to street children and children in prisons. Mkurnali is sort of a “mom and pop” NGO that has had some great results with very few financial resources.
Accompanying vice president Nino Chubabria to police stations, the Avchala prison, and court, I observed her juvenile defense project at work. The project, started in 2005 and staffed solely by Ms Chubabria and Lela Abashmadze, is the only program of its kind in Tbilisi. Operating completely without funding, Mkurnali has successfully rescued dozens of children from the criminal justice system. Mkurnali has also been running successful vocational training workshops and providing a free lunch for street children for seven years.
There are very few places for street children in Georgia to go. The government’s Gldani shelter in Tbilisi has been mired in scandal from its conception. Only 20 out of the estimated 1200 street children in Tbilisi are staying at the shelter, which has 47 beds and employs a staff of 35. The children stay away because a disconcerting number of them end up being sent from the shelter straight to jail for petty reasons. With no refuge to be found, Georgia's street children become trapped in a cycle of poverty and crime.
There are many parallels between the current Georgian criminal justice system and the Stalin-era gulags: pressure from a high government source to make arrests, regular police intimidation to sign false confessions, absurd convictions, unreasonable sentences for petty crimes, and severely overcrowded prisons. Street children in Georgia suffer disproportionately under the government's zero tolerance frenzy to arrest criminals. When the real perpetrators cannot be found, it is often easier to accuse a homeless child then it is to explain an unsolved crime.
UNICEF reports that higher and higher percentages of juveniles are going to prison for petty theft in Georgia and are receiving longer prison sentences by the courts. The Avchala juvenile prison population swelled from 150 to 210 in just a few months this year. It is alarmingly common for a hungry child in Georgia to go to prison for seven years for stealing a wheel of cheese to eat. This kind of theft is treated as a criminal problem by the government, but in reality it a humanitarian one.
Once in prison conditions are grim. Eighty boys were moved in August from the Avchala juvenile prison to Rustavi adult prison No. 2 as a punishment for a disturbance. Some of the children moved to Rustavi were as young as 14, committed crimes as minor as stealing a pair of socks, and had nothing to do with the Avchala disturbance. In Rustavi the children have spent three long months languishing in locked cells without proper ventilation 23.5 hours a day. The Rustavi prison, which does not supply clean drinking water, adequate nutrition or sanitation to inmates, made it almost impossible for the families to visit their children, who were rumored to be abused by prison guards.
It simply does not serve the Georgian people to pay for a child to languish in prison for seven years for stealing a pair of socks. A much better solution is a community service program, picking up rubbish in Tbilisi's public parks, for example. Until the government takes a humane approach towards juvenile justice, it is more important then ever to support the NGOs that provide humanitarian relief, education and legal assistance to Georgia's vulnerable street children and economically disadvantaged youth.
Tawnya Ferbiak
Boulder, Colorado
Tawnya Ferbiak is founder of a US-based non profit organization which assists socially disadvantaged Georgian youths. The organization can be contacted at info@georgianyouthrescue.org.