Estimates say that during the 1990s in Mongolia, around three thousand children were recorded to be living without parental care or guardianship. This number has since fallen to one thousand. But officials say they can’t gather concrete information on how this number decreased or where these children have gone.
Officials at the residence registration center affiliated with Ulaanbaatar's police department say that over a thousand children are recorded annually. Most of these children have a parent or a guardian but are unlikely to live with them, which results in the children living without a permanent residence. But related officials say the number of homeless children in recent years has fallen compared to a decade ago.
Not every homeless child is recorded at the residence registration center. Some children become homeless due to family problems and economic hardship while others leave home to work.
Homeless child, “I used to sell gum while I was on the streets. Sometimes I begged for money. I slept on the floors of apartment buildings and bought food with the money that I found”.
There is concern among society about where these homeless children are going. Are the lives of homeless children really improving? Or are they affected by human trafficking and being sent abroad?
In 1990, Mongolian children's organizations started a project to count the homeless children, and recorded 3,000 of them in the country. It is still unknown how these recorded children are doing today.