SAHAKYAN TO YACOUBIAN: EVERY CHILD SHOULD ENJOY RIGHT TO GROW UP IN FAMILY
November 1, 2012
Emil Sahakyan, communications officer at UNICEF Armenia, writes the
following in response to a Letter to the Editor by George S.
Yacoubian, Jr., the national Society for Orphaned Armenian Relief
(SOAR) president, on the article “Ending the Era of Orphanages
in Armenia: Why the Diaspora Should Help the Process of
De-Institutionalization” by Nanore Barsoumian.
Dear Mr. Yacoubian,
After re-gaining its independence in 1991, Armenia has ratified
numerous international human rights instruments, including the
widely acknowledged Convention on the Rights of the Child and its
Optional Protocols. Among other key rights of children embedded in
the convention, the latter places particular emphasis on the right
of a child to grow up in a family, and promotes the principle of the
best interests of the child.
“UNICEF fully shares this vision, which stems from the government’s
policy on de-institutionalization, and the commitment to ensure that
every child in Armenia enjoys the right to grow up in a family.”
Guided by this principle, as well as by the provisions of the
convention, the government of Armenia has embarked on the path of
child welfare reform that aims at ensuring an environment and systems
wherein all children can exercise a full range of the rights accorded
to them by the convention.
The realization of the right of a child to grow up in
a family was then further reinforced by the adoption
of the governmental policy on de-institutionalization
(see ,
, and
) and included
in the government’s top priority issues in 2011 (see
).
In 2006 UNICEF, in cooperation with the Fund for Armenian Relief (FAR),
piloted foster care in two provinces of Armenia (Lori and Gegharkunik),
and placed 32 children from orphanages with foster families. Its
successful implementation and results allowed the government of Armenia
to take over the foster care program and commit state funds toward
its further implementation and expansion. To date the government
continues to allocate funds to run foster care programs. And yet,
the number of children placed under foster care has not grown. The
reason is that the Armenian Ministry of Finance refuses to allocate
state funds to run two parallel systems-orphanages (residential care
institutions) and foster care-arguing that the expansion of foster
care should be directly linked to the decrease in the number of
children in orphanages, which is a valid argument.
That being said, UNICEF would like to respond to some of the statements
you made in your response to Ms. Barsoumian’s article, “Ending the
Era of Orphanages in Armenia.”
You wrote, “While the idea of foster care is beneficial in theory,
there is no empirical evidence to suggest that foster care in Armenia
would provide any advantages over the current orphanage system.
Moreover, the short- and long-term problems are so potentially
crippling that the foster care proposal does not even merit serious
discussion.” Unfortunately, this statement does not reflect true real
state of affairs in Armenia. The government would not have accepted
the inclusion of foster care as part of its de-institutionalization
policy and child welfare reform had there not been evidence of the
program’s success. Publicly available evaluations and reports, as
well as individual testimonies from children and foster families,
demonstrate that foster care is both a feasible and beneficial option
for Armenia.
In addition to ensuring that a child grows up in a family
environment, the program also proved to be cost-effective. A
recommendation has been made to re-allocate funds provided to
maintain orphanages and other residential care institutions towards
the expansion of foster care and other alternative family-based
care services, which is in line with the recommendation
of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Armenia (see
).
To gather further evidence, UNICEF, jointly with Save the Children,
has commissioned a new survey that will allow the generation of more
data and knowledge on the foster care program in Armenia.
In choosing between foster care and orphanages (or residential care
institutions), one must always keep in mind the best interests of
the child. It’s quite needless to say that children thrive more and
develop to their full potential in a family environment, and not in
an institution. Numerous scientific studies have demonstrated that
children placed in orphanages, especially in their early years, may
stay behind in their cognitive and emotional development compared to
their peers living in families. They often lack socialization skills,
and find it difficult to integrate into society and create their
own families.
You wrote, “To begin, orphanages in Armenia are not part of some
bygone ‘era.’ The significance of orphanages in Armenia trace back to
the 1915 Armenia Genocide, where hundreds of thousands of children
found peace and security in these safe havens.” In this statement,
reference is made to circumstances and events that happened in the
last century. Today’s Armenia represents a completely different
reality. Today’s orphans are not similar to the ones that appeared
because of the 1915 genocide or the devastating 1988 earthquake. Most
of them are so-called “social orphans”; they have parents who, out of
poverty and a sheer inability to meet their children’s basic needs,
placed them in an orphanage. The Armenian media space is abundant with
stories of children whose parents simply had no other choice. Many of
them are available on the Investigative Journalists site,
Children from poor families placed in residential care institutions,
such as orphanages, get food and clothing, but they are stripped
of such important things as emotional bonding with their families,
which negatively impacts their development. Moreover, children who
grow up in an orphanage often experience stigma from their peers,
who may treat them as inferior.
You wrote, “…Tales of abuse and other malfeasance by orphanage
officials are broad generalizations made by self-serving zealots.”
Numerous reports-produced by the Office of the Human Rights
Defender of Armenia, Save the Children, the Public Monitoring
Group of the Ministry of Education and Sciences of Armenia, and
other international organizations working in Armenia in the area
of child rights-have uncovered cases of the abuse or maltreatment
of children in such institutions. Recently, the media reported
on a number of cases where children living in special education
institutions were subjected to sexual abuse or committed suicide (see
,
). The General Prosecutor’s Office
is dealing with many cases of the misappropriation of funds allocated
for orphanages and other residential care institutions. These cases
triggered public outrage, which demanded the toughest possible
sentences for perpetrators of the crime.
Last year, within the framework of the “Every Child Needs a
Family” campaign, the Armenian Public Relations Association
produced a documentary called “Hostages,” which is abundant
with testimonies by former residents of orphanages and special
education institutions, recalling their hard lives in those
institutions (see and
).
You wrote, “The solution is not ‘ending the orphanage era,’ but
rather expanding the current orphan system to allocate resources
for more intensive supervision of the existing facilities and
the establishment of housing that facilitates the transition from
orphanage to adolescence to adulthood.” The suggestion to expand the
current orphan system does not only represent the old mind set, which
is no longer acceptable, but also goes contrary to the human rights
principles-including children’s rights-that Armenia, as an independent
state, has subscribed to. It ignores the principle of the best interest
of the child and puts in jeopardy the nature of the Armenian family,
and by extension Armenian society as a whole. Today Armenia is trying
to become a part of a civilized world by implementing and re-enforcing
international standards in its social protection and social welfare
system. Diaspora-based organizations are also part of this important
process, which has many challenges. At a recent meeting organized by
the Armenian Relief Society (ARS), one of the oldest diaspora-based
Armenian organizations, participants sent a strong message on how
best to meet the interests of children deprived of parental care. The
message was to invest in alternative family-based care services
for such children and their families (including foster care); in
supporting disadvantaged families to overcome socio-economic hardship,
thus preventing children from entering residential care institutions;
and in assisting the process of transformation of residential care
institutions into resource and family support centres. UNICEF fully
shares this vision, which stems from the government’s policy on
de-institutionalization, and the commitment to ensure that every
child in Armenia enjoys the right to grow up in a family.
http://www.armenianweekly.com/2012/11/01/sahakyan-to-yacoubian-every-child-should-enjoy-right-to-grow-up-in-family/
www.arlis.am/DocumentView.aspx?DocID=11647
www.arlis.am/DocumentView.aspx?DocID=51991
www.arlis.am/DocumentView.aspx?DocID=57985
www.gov.am/files/docs/927.pdf
www.unicef.org/armenia/Costing_Residential_Care_Institutions_in_Armenia_report_eng.pdf
www.hetq.am.
www.youngarmenians.com/?option=com_content&view=article&id=133:sexual-molestation&catid=43:press-releases&Itemid=124&fontstyle=f-larger
www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-em0BrQu-A
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dm9QK2JzFUU
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dm9QK2JzFUU