1st Place NPPA Best of Photojournalism Magazine Picture Story

Ukraine's Lost Generation

_{For many former communist countries, the painful transition to a free market economy has led to an increase in homeless children. In Ukraine, a staggering number of children in the early 2000s were either abandoned or forced to live on the streets. Official estimates range between 30,000 and 300,000 though some experts believe it is much higher. Many of these children face sexual violence, drug abuse, malnutrition, police abuse, and harassment. In addition, they are also engaging in risky sexual activity, forced sex, unintended pregnancy, and different kinds of infections ranging from HIV, STDs, and hepatitis.}

_{Artyom, a 9-year-old has been living in this sewer in Kyiv for over three years and has never attended school. His emotionally and physically scarred brother refuses to contemplate returning home to their abusive alcoholic father. To fight off the hunger that he experiences throughout the day, he, like many of the children, will huff glue in hopes of it killing their appetite and making them forget about the misery of their everyday lives on the streets.}

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_{Suffering from morning sickness, Natasha Dzhuley, 16, wakes up after a night of prostitution. Though pregnant, a nervous Natasha claims that her abortion worked. Fearful of her pimps’ reaction to her pregnancy she drank several bottles of red wine and took a ‘very hot bath in which she bled.’ Natasha, like other girls work out of a mafiacontrolled flat where they are given clean clothes and instructed to bathe regularly.}-

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_{For most children inhaling glue not only kills the pain of their sad existence but also their hunger pains. Inhaling in ‘the box’ where the rancid fumes of the glue stay trapped longer decreases the amount of glue needed and keeps them high longer.}

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Denise Selivanov, 13, inhales glue while his younger brother Artyom Selivanov, 9, watches. After suffering years of abuse at the hands of their alcoholic father, Denise made the decision that life on the streets would be far easier than the misery they experienced at home.

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_{Emotionally scarred, Ruslana, who believes she is aged 13, lives in constant fear of being dragged back into prostitution. She hopes that older boys like Sasha, 21, will protect her from the pimps that stalk the streets. Though there are no estimates for street children - over 120,000 young Ukrainian women were trafficked last year alone into the sex slave eclipsing Latin America as the leading source of trafficked women.}

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_{Sasha, 16, breaks the everyday monotony to enjoy a few minutes on a ‘borrowed’ scooter. The punishment for stealing varies from beatings and arrests to having the sewers set alight where they become unsuitable for the children to live in.}

A train underpass provides some shelter from the elements as the boys play cards and kill their hunger.

The glue takes its effect as Denise stumbles around in the near-pitch darkness of where he is sleeping for the night.

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_{Suffering from a broken nose and bruised ribs Natasha whimpers in pain from the beatings she received from her pimp's men. Ruslana believes her beatings were a warning to other prostitutes to stay in line. Several days later the children watched helplessly as Natasha was dragged away by six men. Her boyfriend has not seen or heard from her since.}

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_{While the children are asleep Ruslana, 13, collects hidden bottles that she exchanges for cash. Originally from the Carpathians, Ruslana, and her two siblings were abandoned at a rail station in Kyiv three years ago as the family was moving to Russia. The children have been secretly saving money in hopes of traveling to Russia to find their sister.}

A final look back

For the children depicted here, their chances of escaping this situation are quite grim. Several children are no longer alive (Sasha and Ruslan). The toll on their bodies from the glue not only destroys their lungs and internal organs but leads to terrible mental issues, overdoses, and death.

Natasha pictured earlier in this series had a baby boy and was last seen living near the area where she was pictured. She is supporting her son and her new boyfriend by continuing to work as a prostitute. For many of the other children, their fate is unknown.

A year after this series was concluded and published internationally, Shira Pinson, a documentary cinematographer caught up with the remaining children who were still alive and documented their plight in her film, 'Flowers Don't Grow Here' (2005).

You can view the trailer of this documentary here.

Ukraine's Lost Generation

Kurt Vinion - reportage on Ukraine's Street Children