- Daniel Mutica was putting up posters over his bed last
week. Once the tattered images of rock bands were securely pinned, he pulled
back a thin cotton sheet, and climbed into his bed to sleep. Like many
youngsters he is a music fan, but for Daniel there is a difference - the
rock posters, along with his bed, are 20 feet below ground, in a section
of Bucharest sewer.
-
- He is not alone. All over Romania, hundreds of sewer
children live in the country's network of tunnels. Most of them are descendants
of children who were first discovered in the sewers when Communism collapsed
more than a decade ago.
-
- Many of those original sewer-dwellers, now adults, are
still there with children of their own, fighting for space among the water
pipes with orphans like Daniel. The pipes, a legacy of the Communist regime,
were designed to supply blocks of flats from centrally-located heating
plants as a model of Communist efficiency. In practice, they shed most
of their heat underground, providing warmth in the sewers all year round.
-
- Daniel reaches his subterranean bedroom via a manhole
cover on a traffic island in one of Bucharest's vehicle-choked main streets,
darting between ageing Trabants, buses and trucks that spew out so much
exhaust the air is barely breathable.
-
- As the metal cover is lifted, a wave of heat rises out
of the opening. Climbing carefully down over the rusting rungs of the metal
ladder you are met by the smell of rotting garbage - banana skins, plastic
bottles, cabbage leaves, and faeces from both rats and humans - which rises
intensely with the heated air.
-
- The sewer-dwellers do not try to clear out the garbage,
saying that the rusting ladder rungs are dangerous enough without extra
weight, and the rubbish would only wash back in next time it rains.
-
- During the day, faint rays of light that enter through
the manhole opening are just enough to show the way to the bedrooms over
the tangle of pipes and rubbish. At night, small torches are used. Fires
have not been lit since a blaze two years ago killed two homeless teenagers
and injured seven others.
-
- The response at the time of Romanian officials was to
start a programme of sealing up the tunnels - in Bucharest at least - mainly
to stop negative publicity. Orphans such as Daniel, however, soon found
their way in again, and council departments lost interest in constantly
evicting sewer residents, and having to reseal entrances.
-
- Their beds are mostly dirty, torn and mud-covered mattresses
which are, nevertheless, warm and dry, laid as they are between the large
water pipes - some of which are too hot to touch. The garbage in the sewer
has been swept away from around the bedrooms.
-
- Within a few seconds of being inside, it's impossible
not to break out in a sweat, but the sewer children and their parents guard
their places even in the summer, for fear of losing them in winter.
-
- In another section of the sewer, Doru, 30, accepts a
cigarette as he squats on his mattress and explains that he has been living
in the sewers since he was 14. "It's not so bad," he says. "I'm
lucky to be here still. When I was younger I did all the crazy things,
like sniffing paint, but now I have responsibilities, I have a wife, and
our baby has just been born. With Cristina and Valentin to take care of,
I need to be more responsible."
-
- The sewer family live together with Cristina's mother,
Mariana, in a tunnel close to one of the fanciest districts in Bucharest,
Cotroceni, just a few hundred feet away from what was Nicolae Ceaucescu's
Presidential Palace.
-
- Doru says: "Most people driving past don't know
we're here, they are more intent on avoiding the holes in the road."
-
- Cristina, 18, is worried that she has not baptised her
baby yet, but is happy he is healthy. She says: "The doctor told me
to keep him as much as possible outside, in clean air, because down here
anyone would get sick."
-
- She has been living in the sewers since her mother, Mariana,
lost her job at a local power station and they were evicted from their
one-room flat. She doesn't know exactly how many years they have been there,
but is sure it has been more than five.
-
- Mariana still gets some money for food from occasional
jobs such as cleaning and gardening. But she weighs just 40 kilos (less
than seven stone) and complains that physical work, such as climbing a
ladder to clean office windows, tires her out.
-
- Doru and Cristina, meanwhile, beg every day for money
on the Bucharest buses, taking it in turns to carry their child in the
hope that other passengers will take pity on them.
-
- "We hate the fact we're using our child to get money,"
says Cristina. "But there is no other choice. On a good day we make
about 600,000 lei [£10]. But on other days we make nothing."
-
- George Roman, of Save the Children in Bucharest, believes
that fewer families now live in the sewers than a decade ago because they
are harder to access, but admits that more are now probably living on the
streets.
-
- Last year Romania was actually praised by the European
Union for progress in the area of child protection as it sought to curry
favour for its 2007 membership bid. The EU commission stated: "Romania
continues to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, and has made
good progress especially as regards anti-discrimination, child protection
and national minorities." The report, however, was prepared on data
provided solely by the Romanians. Mr Roman estimates that as many as 60,000
children are surviving by begging, often supporting not just themselves
but their families as well.
-
- Laura Bodor, a social worker, says that no one has any
real idea how many children live in the sewers as there are no official
records, and adds that if numbers have dropped it is only after officials
bricked the sewers up to stop children using them. This policy not only
stops social workers finding the children, but also restricts the access
of the media, who increasingly are making negative reports.
-
- Most of the unwanted children in the sewers back in 1989,
when the country threw off Communism, had come from state institutions
run under Ceaucescu. They were victims of his policy of forcing the population
to grow as quickly as possible by banning birth control. After he was deposed
they were simply released on to the streets where many stayed and had children
of their own.
-
- Others are victims of intense EU pressure in the last
two years on Romania to reduce its dependency on orphanages - and close
them. Like the sewer children of more than a decade ago, those being raised
in orphanages now often end up on the streets, and have to choose between
life above ground, which in winter is often below zero, or in the sewers.
-
- Marian Zaharia, the programme co-ordinator for The City
of Hope organisation, which works with street children in Bucharest, says:
"We can't help more children because we cannot find them as easily
as before. The City Hall has sealed many sewers, and the children have
had to find other places to stay. To block the sewers is okay, but the
problem is that the authorities haven't offered any alternative."
-
- Doru and his family are among those who have found their
way back in, and there are many others besides. Nearby, Stefania, aged
five, and her sewer-raised mother, Georgiana Niculescu, 38, get to their
home from a pavement framed by public fountains.
-
- Georgiana says that she managed to leave her sewer life
when she married, but her aggressive husband forced her back. "I came
back to the sewers when my husband turned violent," she says. "I
prefer to be here than to be with a man who has no respect at all for me
and my small child. I hate being here, but it still is better and it's
safer than being on the streets."
-
- Organisations working with homeless children say that
the government has been woeful in combating the issue, treating it as a
"marginal problem".
-
- Mr Roman says: "The state doesn't provide permanent
social assistance to these children and the system in place is far from
satisfactory.
-
- "There are local or personal initiatives from some
good-hearted social workers who get involved in helping street children,
but since I started to work in this field 10 years ago I have never heard
of a national monitoring system or a national strategy for this category
of children.
-
- "They are forced to accept this situation and they
have never really had a choice."
-
- Government officials, however, say that part of the problem
is that people in society have failed to abandon the thinking of the Ceaucescu
regime. Gabriela Coman, the state secretary and head of the National Authorities
for Child Protection and Adoption, says: "The regime's policies encouraged
births and every family was expected to have four children."
-
- She adds that this mentality is still maintained today
and says that it does not help that many parents feel that if they cannot
look after their children, the state should.
-
- "But this means many fall through the social net,"
says Ms Coman.
-
- For Doru, on his underground bed, he still hopes to find
a way out of the sewers. "I have been here half my life but now I
am hoping to get a job. A lot of people are leaving here to work abroad
and that means I have a chance. If we can get ourselves a small flat with
the money, I will have everything I want."
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