Albert Likhanov, a chairman of the Russian children?s fund, a Russian Academy of Sciences academician and a writer, finds a lot of discrepancies between the figures published in a state report ?On the state of the children in the Russian Federation? issued on the occasion of the International day of children, and the real figures. For example, the number of Russian orphans in the report is three times lower than that quoted by the Russian children?s fund. Though the state report figures appear underestimated, they should cause our deep concern anyway.
An alternative report by the Russian children?s fund is titled: ?The hardships of childhood?.
The new state report ?On the state of the children in the Russian Federation? was published a few days ago. This is the 2003 report though the latest information in it refers to the year 2002. Well, the bureaucrats seem to be good at making haste slowly. I?d like to emphasize that the government does the right thing by keeping making the reports like that. Our fund started the tradition back in 1990, when it issued a report ?The state of the children in the USSR?. The publication sparked a great deal of controversy. Many a figure in it were made public for the first time and didn?t look bright at all. They failed to furnish evidence for the famous Soviet-era incantation that called children ?the only privileged class in the Soviet Union.?
By the way, the authorities commissioned our non-governmental organization to prepare such reports and we did so up to 1994. Then the Ministry of labor and social development was made responsible for drawing an official annual report, the latest one was also made by the latest version of the ministry. Our organization has been publishing a report of its own since then. The report is titled ?The hardships of childhood?, it contains somewhat different figures and reflects a somewhat different range of opinion on the issue. The report is independent and will be kept this way from now on.
Children by numbers
The exact number of the children is one of the most sensitive issues. According to the state report, there was 30.5 million children in under 18 in Russia, or 21.3% of the country?s population, as at the beginning of 2003. But the statistics are made for making a comparison. I mean, there was 32.8 million children in Russia by the start of 2002. In other words, 2.3 million simply disappeared over the period of one year! There was 33.9 million in 2000. The number shrank by 3.4 in two years.
Let?s take a look back at the situation in 1992. According to the UNISEF report ?The state of the children in the world?, Russia had 44,349,470 children in 1992. The number stands for a loss of 13,849,470 humans!
Politicians and the media alike love citing alarming figures about an alleged 1 million drop in the nation?s population each year. All told, Russia?s population decreased by 5,229,000 people, from 148,326,000 to 143,097,000 while the number of children dropped by some 14 million! That?s where the bullet hits the bone: one part of the statistics shows children coming of age, growing up while the other shows that their mission is aborted for they?ve never been born.
How does it feel to be a child in Russia?
4 million children born out of wedlock
3,991,570 Russian children were born out of wedlock in the last 10 years. The reports says that 411.5 thousand illegitimate children were born in 2002, a 40 thousand annual increase. 195,397 thousand infants of the above number were registered on request by both parents i.e. mom and dad at hand but still they register their offspring as an illegitimate child. Why does it happen this way? Because a single mother?s monthly child support is larger than an ordinary monthly child allowance set at 86 roubles 50 kopeks in 2002! It?s the poverty that makes a child officially fatherless and its parents ingenious at getting round the law by that fishy method. For my part, the above situation can be used as a good illustration for the president?s speeches regarding poverty in this country.
More orphans today than after World War II
I?ve always referred to some terrible figures dating back to the postwar period. I talk about 678 thousand child orphans in the Soviet Union, according to official sources. Other sources say that the number was a lot higher. These days official statistics indicate that the number of orphans in today?s Russia has risen to 700,851 i.e. we?ve got more orphans now than we did after the war.
The Russian children?s fund believes that the number is at least 10% higher than quoted. The official data doesn?t include the children kept in the orphanages, both state-run and private, it doesn?t include those who?re ?on the run? either e.g. sheltered by their friends or relatives. The figures rise dramatically once we start reaching the heart of the matter.
For example, there?re 1339 schools for the mentally underachieved; 126 schools and 16,993 classes for children with arrested mental development; 152 asylums for disabled children. The figures stand for scores of kids put inside those institutions, they?re mostly forgotten by their next of kin and full of anguish since the very young age.
Conclusion: one can spend a lifetime finding faults with the government and funding, but parents will remain primarily responsible for upbringing a child. The government should take new steps for creating more opportunities for social initiatives. The children?s fund worked hard in 1988 to implement a government?s decree on launching a family orphanage. Actually, is was just a family ready and willing to accept 5 orphans at a time. The project proved a success and now we have 2,700 kind raised in 368 families like that. Not a single one of that number became a criminal or drug addict. All of them found the adults that are their true loved ones.
Childhood?s shagreen leather
I?d like to elaborate on the subject. The official reports says about 1,186,694 children without parental guidance who were ?revealed for the first time? over the last ten years. Those children keep growing up too like everybody else. Alas, just a handful of them score a success. The majority join the dregs of society. The shagreen leather of Russian childhood is obviously shrinking due to growing numbers of orphans, lack of professionalism, and horrendous poverty. There?re 2,000 thousand orphan homes around the country. The institutions has a host of staff workers including real heroes and devotees. However, a model director isn?t a parent and he can?t work wonders and guide a orphan until the latter becomes a full-fledged member of society.
What about the rest of the children? The picture is painted with the different shades of pessimism. For example, the 2002 data show that 37,983,000 children out of 30,500,000 minors were diagnosed with diabetes for the first time, therefore many kids have a number of illnesses. The report is both accurate and tricky at the same time. It looks very much in line with the common approach to statistical studies. The numbers cited are relevant only to children up to 14 years old though they should have covered children up to 18 years old.
More felonies committed by children
The number of crimes committed by children in 2002 is 2, 526 million, it?s more half a million less than that for 1999. However, the number of felonies rose by 2 million. The number of underage convicts dropped from 142,829 thousand in 2001 to 88,334 thousand on the following year. But the number of youngsters sent to reform school has been growing steadily.
Unfortunately, the official report doesn?t thoroughly analyze such serious problems as juvenile delinquency, sex industry involving children, the spread of AIDS and syphilis among the children. Neither the former Ministry of labor nor anybody else seems to be able to provide reliable data on the problem of drug addiction at school. Our estimates show that at least 600 thousand kids have tried the poison already. The official statistics on youth street gangs are rather inarticulate. Moreover, the issue of skinheads has been left overboard.
It?s easy to accuse me of painting the whole picture black. I?d love to produce a brighter one but the State committee on statistics keeps me from doing so. Besides, President Putin in his latest ?State of the nation? address called on non-political NGO?s ?to fight for the real interests of citizens?. We?ve been doing what we can whereas the number of miserable children keeps rising anyway. Not only the Russian children?s fund, all the others too are in need of legal support and tax relieve applicable to similar organizations around the world. We and our affiliates can only spend between $3 to $4 million on the outcast children but the sum is too small to tackle the problem adequately.
