Increasingly Russian teens are stopping their own lives because of growing conflicts between themselves and their parents. Another problem Dr. Goryachkina says they are so busy, she and her staff do not dare to take vacations and rarely have a day off is teenaged runaways. Seventy children run away from home every day in Samara. A special 24-hour hotline installed just for young people is in use all day, every day. There is only one public youth facility and it can accommodate only 16 youngsters at one time.
Police provide an additional shelter, but both the doctors and the children call it a prison.
The rest of the youngsters sleep in public parks, subways and other place they can find shelter. Once on the street they quickly turn to stealing, drugs and prostitution. A third problem they deal with is family planning. Russian young people are becoming sexually active at age 12. Young couples do not practice birth control the difficulty in securing contraceptives only adds to the problems.