The Capital City has no Finances for Children

The Capital City has no Finances for Children

From 2005 Child Defense Center will not Exist Due to Lack of Finances

The hard social environment existing in Georgia, poor living conditions, unemployment and many other problems which still remain unsolved in our society have the most negative influence on orphaned children and children from socially disadvantaged families and make their conditions even worse. Number of street children is daily increased who make their living by begging in the streets and in some cases they even support the whole family. On this extremely hard background there is still a threat of closing Child Defense City Center as, for some reason, the finances for the center have not been considered in the draft of the city budget. It is the responsibility and function of the Center to defend the rights of all the children living in the Capital City, Tbilisi. It has been conducting its work in a number of different directions educational activity, sociological research and analysis, psychological, legal assistance and public relations being the priorities. The position of representatives from the Mayor’s Office regarding the fate of the Center is still unknown. Due to changes in the staff that have been conducted lately in the Municipality nobody can find time for Child Defense Civil Center and nobody speaks about the topic. Human Rights Information and Documentation Center tried to contact different services of the Mayor’s Office including Civil Service as Child Defense Center is subordinate to it, but due to staff changes or lack of information they did not only not find time for making any comments but could not even find a competent person who would be able to give some explanation on the issue.

Defense of the rights of the child is one of the burning topics in Georgia of today. In conditions of severe social crisis existing in Georgia for years already, it will not be difficult to make a prognosis of serious and alarming results in the sphere of child’s rights defense. Number of socially unprotected children is daily increased in the Georgian society and the majority of such children make their living by begging in the streets, metro trains or underpasses. However surprising it may seem most of these children have families, parents who encourage their children to beg. In the country in which socio-economic situation is really bad and almost half of the population lives in extreme poverty because of unemployment certain families agree to let their children beg in the streets.

The role of NGOs and city services working in the field of child’s rights defense is decisive in solving the problem. Instead of new measures and establishing needed efficient structure for the defense of child rights Child Defense City Center is under threat of being closed.

The threat became visible after Education City Service without any agreement with the management failed to consider the finances for the Center in the city budget.

Child Defense City Center has been functioning since 1995 and at present it is subordinated to Tbilisi Civil Service. Child Defense Center has been working in many directions including educational activity, sociological research and analysis which is helpful to estimate the situation existing in the Capital City and to find the proper ways for further activities not only for the Center itself but also for any other facilities working with the issues of children. Psychological activity is one of the activities of the Center as well, which implies rendering psychological assistance to children having specific problems.

Nino Bestavashvili