Edet Belzberg Children Underground Essay

The documentary Children Underground focuses on the social issues associated with and surrounded by inhalants. The homeless children of Romania live a tough life, begging strangers for money and food, working for merchants for change, and fighting each other for their lives. Faced with poverty, abuse, and starvation, many children joined those already in the streets of Bucharest. With only each other to turn to for examples of how to lead their lives, many of these homeless children became addicted to inhalants, particularly huffing paint. The director of the film, Edet Belzberg, aims to bring harsh, undiscussed realities of a major modern city to light. The effects of laws on the poor are often not considered, creating a public problem that is left to attempt to solve itself. The documentary shows that laws and policies can be easily made with moral intentions, but neglect to consider their wider social impact on the whole of society. One example of a law’s influence having a

Unfortunately, this further stigmatizes this group of children. However, this is where they can finally gain their feelings of euphoria or happiness, even if only temporary. According to a study done on American Indians, the children who use inhalants are more likely to have higher levels of anxiety and depression than non-users (Howard et al., 1999, 89). This can easily parallel as those Romanian children who were abandoned or forced to leave the only lives they’ve known are very likely to be anxious, if not also depressed. Additionally, these children had lower perceived self-worth than non-users. While the intentions of banning abortions was for people to live a more “moral” lifestyle, this imposition of morals led to a younger generation of impoverished and homeless children turning into drug users – the unintended