Not My Choice Campaign against children exploitation

Press Release                                                                             

“Not My Choice” campaign launching event

World Vision Georgia is launching the “Not My Choice" campaign against child exploitation in the streets. With this initiative we are joining World Vision’s global campaign “It takes a World to End Violence Against Children” with a specific focus to combat child exploitation on the streets.

The event will take place at the Tbilisi Marriott Hotel, on Friday, 5 May 2017, 09.30 AM.

Together with donor organisations and government representatives we will highlight the issues faced by children living and working in the streets. We will also introduce the results of a survey conducted by Digital Humanity agency under World Vision’s supervision, which studied the attitudes of the society towards these children.

With support from the donor community, in 2013 the Government of Georgia and nongovernmental organisations united their efforts to create services for children living and working on the streets and to develop a mechanism for their identification and referral to relevant services. To date, around 800 children have been identified through the Ministry of Health, Labour and Social Affairs’ Social Service Agency database, as children pursuing a street life on a daily basis. Corporal punishment, maltreatment and deprivation of basic and developmental needs are the outcomes of economic exploitation by family members, close relatives and other elders. The “Not My Choice” campaign aspires to end child exploitation on the streets by challenging attitudes, beliefs and behaviours that condone it and by ensuring that the government enacts policies that prohibit it and provides services to prevent it.

World Vision Georgia has been implementing projects with children working and living in the streets for several years. Each year, World Vision’s three Day Care Crisis  Intervention Centres (two in Tbilisi and one in Kutaisi) provide vulnerable children with medical, nutritional and psychological support. The long-term goal of the centre is to help these children turn their lives around and enable them to enter formal education – improving their chances for a better future.