MONGOLIA'S MISERY

The world needs to wake up to the macabre reality of poverty in Mongolia, writes DAMIEN DAWSON.

For the past six months I have been filming a documentary covering human trafficking and poverty in Mongolia.
Last month, my cameraman and I walked into the Ger districts that are scattered across the hillsides of the capital city of Ulaanbaatar and that house more than 80 per cent of the capital's inhabitants.

The districts, named for the traditional Mongolian dwellings that are built with whatever the occupants can find or afford to use, have stood on the hills for so long that shops have sprung up among them in a manner like the shanties of Brazil and Indonesia.

In winter, the temperature falls to minus 25deg. These communities do not have running water or sanitation. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of people share pit toilets and wells. The infant mortality rate in this country of just over 2.6 million is 13%.
But among those struggling to live there and in many other places around the country, a terrible secret is being kept.

The hills around Ulan Bator are home to the poorest people in Mongolia and are also the sites of cemeteries, where the bodies of the young and old rest. But the dead are not at rest, nor are they being respected.

The cemeteries around Ulan Bator are being desecrated on such a large scale that the uniformity of the destruction, of almost every grave, makes the damage almost unnoticeable from a distance.

Graves lie open to the sun and the personal possessions and other keepsakes that were buried with the dead have been stolen and are being sold to tourists and foreign collectors on local market stalls and in antique shops. Bodies lie in pieces scattered around the cemeteries, dragged from their graves by robbers and animals, as buzzards circle the skies.

Desecrated graves appear to have lain open for as long as a decade, judging by the decay of the graves, the coffins and human remains.
In many cases the bodies are nowhere in sight and only a shred of the corpse or clothing is left in an empty coffin or by the grave.

The cemeteries are being used as refuse sites where medical and industrial waste is being dumped. Ger residents rummage through the gravesites in a horrific search for food and fuel, often using coffins as firewood.

During the rainy season of the summer months the water that runs off the hills, becomes contaminated with the waste and remains, and seeps into the wells used by these communities.

All this sits in sight of the national broadcasting station, with no sign of care or resolve from the state or the mass of international non-government organisations (NGOs) or national aid agencies based inside the country.

The Ikh Hural (Mongolian Parliament) enforces heavy taxes on the aid money given to the NGOs and independent aid agencies in Mongolia. Many of the NGO workers apply for positions in problem countries like Mongolia because of the high salaries offered. Few of these workers venture outside their offices without the comfort and security of their Land Cruiser and driver.

Some are said to be fuelling the problems that they have been sent there to prevent, with claims they are using sex workers and frequenting strip clubs when they are supposed to be fighting Aids.

A survey conducted by the Asia Foundation found that almost all street children, some as young as 10, were carrying a sexually transmitted disease. Many sex workers are victims of poverty and abuse in the home, thus adding fuel to an already serious problem.

Demonstrations against the current Health Minister are rife in Ulan Bator because of disputed mismanagement and corruption in the health service. The Mongolian Government recently secured $US300 million of aid money to fight poverty. But perhaps the question should be how a country of 2.6 million people can be suffering from social and political issues that are more common in war-torn African countries.

Mongolia does not suffer from the consequences of warring factions and tribal warfare, but its economy is becoming more unstable due to endemic corruption.

The country is mineral-rich with uranium, gold and copper and attracts huge interest from mining giants such as Ivanhoe Mines, Boro Gold, BHP and Rio Tinto and receives significant revenue from these activities. Yet more than 80% of the population reportedly lives in extreme poverty.
Mongolia has been a member of the United Nations for almost 50 years, yet violates the human rights of its own people in prisons and under the hand of local authorities. This is reflected in the standard of living its people endure.

The problem seems to be that no-one really cares about Mongolia, except to treat it as a commodity.
The outcome is the concrete evidence set before us, where girls as young as 11 are being forced into prostitution, and the spirit of a once-great people has been broken to the point where they would use the coffins of their ancestors as firewood.

* Damien Dawson is a British journalist who has been working in Mongolia for the past 18 months.

Posted by mayaguais at 2:18 PM

Friday, November 16, 2007