HULIQ.com, SC
July 9 2011
Good intentions not enough to close Armenia’s orphanages
Submitted by Sandy Smith on 2011-07-09
The Armenian government is committed to emptying the country’s
orphanages by moving toward foster care and thus, bringing its
institutions in line with the rest of Europe. Yet since the first
steps towards that goal in 2004, they have actually grown in size.
Like the rest of the world, Armenia recognizes the orphanage is a
child welfare institution whose time has passed. Most children in
orphanages and similar institutions suffer from poor physical
conditions and lack the adult support they need to thrive. Armenian
government officials have for years maintained that their goal is to
deinstitutionalize the thousands of children in Armenian orphanages.
But when one considers that 80 percent of those children have at least
one living parent, how will this be achieved?
Put another way, if we are to take the government at its word when it
says it wants to unload the orphanages (why such an unpleasant word
was chosen for a process dealing with children is left to the readers’
interpretation), then we should know what mechanism it plans to use,
for unloading an orphanage requires that all the children in it be
either returned to their natural families or placed with other
families through means such as adoption. Yet the law governing
adoption in Armenia only allows a child to be adopted if the birth
parent either renounced or was legally deprived of his or her rights.
So there exists an impasse when it comes to achieving the government’s
stated goals, and the government’s efforts to bring about the desired
changes through incentives and new laws have come up short as a
result.
There have been two government initiatives since 2004 aimed at
emptying out the orphanages. The first was a pilot program approved by
President Robert Kocharyan in 2004. The “Unloading Orphanages” program
sought to encourage biological parents to take back their children by
providing them with 30,000 dram (AMD) (US$81) for each returned child.
(All currency conversions in this article are listed in parentheses
and rounded to the nearest U.S. dollar or Armenian dram.)
The second was the Strategy of Social Protection Reform of Children
Facing Difficult Life Situations for 2006-2010, implemented starting
in 2006. The centerpiece of the strategy was the introduction of the
institution of the foster family to Armenia. In its first two years,
UNICEF funded and administered the foster family placement program,
which placed 25 children with 23 foster families. Since 2008, the
Armenian government has run the program directly and funded it from
the state budget.
The Minister of Labor and Social Affairs of the Republic of Armenia,
Arthur Grigoryan, says that currently, only 35 children are being
cared for by foster families. The ongoing program not only gives
foster families the support they need to raise their children but
saves the government money as well. A child care worker in Armenia
would have to receive more than AMD 80,000 ($217) a month for the same
service, based on the monthly minimum salary plus the monthly child
care allowance.
Has any progress really been made?
Even after the implementation of the programs described above,
official statistics and reports from international expert monitors
show that not only are Armenian children continuing to live in
orphanages, their numbers are increasing, not decreasing. It appears
that parents facing difficult social and economic conditions still
feel compelled to turn to orphanages and other institutional settings
to look after their children.
According to the National Statistical Service, Armenia has 12
orphanages, eight run by the government and four by private
organizations. In early 2010, these orphanages housed 1,225 children;
one year later, that number had risen by 15. In the intervening year,
77 children in orphanages were adopted and 17 had died.
These numbers, however, account only for orphanages and not for all
institutional settings. A UNICEF study concludes that 4,900 Armenian
children live in institutions of one kind or another. Both the NSS and
UNICEF figures call into question Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs
claims that the number of children in orphanages is gradually
declining.
How much does it cost to care for an orphan?
The government must show by word and deed that its stated aim that
“the child must live in the family” not only is sound policy but also
saves state funds. Therefore we need to examine the amount it costs
the state to care for an institutionalized child. Two studies
conducted by UNICEF sought to answer that question.
For starters, only a small percentage of the total amount the
government gives orphanages for child support goes to food and
clothing for the child. For example, the Children’s House orphanage in
Gyumri, for instance, allocates only 14 percent of what it gets from
the state to the children’s needs, while 68 percent goes into the wage
fund. On average, the Armenian government allots $1700 (AMD 627,572)
per year per employee of an orphanage.
The government allocates about AMD 6,000 ($16) for the daily care of
each child in an orphanage. However, this number fluctuates depending
on the status of an orphanage. The Children’s House receives more per
child because it houses children under 6 years of age with serious
mental and physical health problems. Grigoryan says the figure works
out to about AMD 8,000 ($22) per child per day. The actual figure is
somewhat lower, though. The government budgeted AMD 362,518,000
($982,008) to the orphanage to care for 125 children in fiscal 2011,
but the orphanage actually housed 128, so the actual daily allocation
per child was AMD 7759 ($21) per child per day.
What role does the Armenian diaspora play in perpetuating orphanages?
There is one other factor affecting the status and perpetuation of
orphanages in Armenia: the role of the Diaspora in supporting them.
The charitable impulses of Diaspora Armenians have become a main
source of funds that keep the orphanages running. The institutions use
the funds to renovate their Soviet-era buildings, buy needed
equipment, and even buy basic necessities such as diapers for the
children. There is no formal oversight or control on how the funds are
spent, though some large benefactors, such as Armenian-Canadian
businessman and benefactor Araz Artinian, who has been supporting
Armenian orphanages since 2009, say they regularly visit orphanages,
including areas where journalists may not go, to check on conditions.
A number of Armenian organizations abroad raise funds to support the
orphanages as well. One such group, the U.S.based charity SOAR
(Society for Orphaned Armenian Relief), for instance, raised $117,968
(AMD 43,549,068) for Armenian orphanages in 2010, according to its
annual report. The large sums donated by Armenians in the West may
explain why, despite the intentions of the government, orphanages
remain in operation.
Since the first orphanage in Armenia opened in 1915, the institution
has grown to become a mainstay of the country’s child welfare system.
Most of the rest of the developed world has abandoned orphanages in
favor of the more nurturing environment of the family as the place to
house children whose parents have died or abandoned them. As Armenia
considers itself part of the European family of nations, it aims to
bring its institutions and practices in line with the rest of the
continent. The orphanage remains a major obstacle on the road to the
European family, and the fact that the country relies on it to house
so many children who are there simply because their families fell upon
hard times is a shame. Both the government and people of goodwill
throughout the Diaspora and the international community should work
for their demise.
Related Reading: Armenia aims to replace orphanages with foster caring
and adoption
Original article by Liya Khojoyan, revised by Sandy Smith
From: A. Papazian
http://www.huliq.com/8738/good-intentions-not-enough-close-armenias-orphanages