Hi All,
I went to Bucharest in April 2008 and 2007. I stayed very near and used Piata Victorei metro station. However I did not see any street children anywhere, however I am sure they still exist.
I just wondered does anyone know where they all went. I remember at the end of the film it said the police raided the station and the kids were either put in care or returned home.
i read somewhere that to get into the european union romania was forced to get rid of the street kids, so they did but just to the public eye. supposedly they forced them into orphanages or forced them home, or anywhere that's hidden away enough for the EU not to easily be able to see them. but ya, they do still exist, they're just hidden away so the government won't have to have the guilt of seeing them every day anymore in the subways.
sharethere are a lot of kids like that here...it's just that you have to know where to look.
shareBut also along with EU provisions Romania needs to do away with its orphanage system and move it into an adoption/foster care system. I am currently living in a town of about 6,000 in Romania with one of these orphanages which is causing strain among people who live in the town as to what will happen with these children when this agreement must be met.
shareHi. I live in Bucharest and the Street Kids kind of dissapeared since 2005-2006. I just see from time to time some teen-agers or kids coming up from the Bucharest sewers but I did not see any in the Underground stations or at the Grand Railroad Station where it was full of them in late 90's and early 2000.
shareThey disappeared because they either grew up or died. The phenomenon started with the closing of state-run orphanages in 1990. Because abortion was illegal before (under penalty of death), the number of abandoned children was extremely high. The first street children were forced into their situation by their complete abandonment. The runaway and fugitive children you see in this film were the 'second wave', a consequence of high unemployment and (as is explained) often extreme domestic violence of the 90s, especially in the countryside. They fled into the structures already established by the orphans. In the 2000s, child services became more organized because of EU membership, that's why the phenomenon disappeared. You will still find street children in many places off center though. It's not limited to Romania though, there are also children like that in Berlin, Paris, Rome etc., mostly runaways from unbearable domestic circumstances.
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