Friends of Russian Orphans - Supporting Yaroslavl's children

A nonprofit organization for the support of Russian orphans

The plight of the Russian orphan

A recent report by the United Nations called Russian children "an endangered species." With hundreds of thousands of children living in institutions and an orphanage system that does little to prepare these children for successful adulthood, the plight of the Russian orphan is at a critical stage.

This report is divided into the following sections:

Staggering numbers - Estimated figures of current Russian orphan population
Who are the orphans? - Demographic details of the children
The life of the Russian orphan - The progression of a child's life in the orphanage system
How Russian society views orphans - The citizenry's approach to this crisis
Further reading - Links to reports on Yaroslavl orphans

Staggering numbers

A 1997 report by UNICEF stated that over 600,000 Russian children were lacking parental care. Nearly 350,000 of these children resided in state-run institutions; another 30,000 were committed to locked psychoneurological homes for "uneducable" children. Another report the following year contended that there was a total of 860,000 children in institutions. But even that staggering amount may be in doubt; Russia's own government recently has suggested that as many as two million of the country's children do not have parents to look after them.

The situation is showing no signs of improving. On average, every 100th child born in Russia today is sent to an orphanage directly from the maternity hospital because the parents cannot or will not care for their child; UNICEF notes that the annual number of children registered as "left without parental care" doubled between 1989 and 1999. On top of this, an estimated 30,000 Russian children run away from troubled homes each year, clogging the urban railway stations and metros, sometimes ending up in shelters and orphanages.

Who are the orphans?

Only about five percent of the children in Russia 's orphanages fit the formal definition of the term "orphan" -- that is, a child with no living parents. Most Russian orphans actually have at least one living parent, but these children are categorized as "social" orphans because their parents do not care for them. The parents have either rejected these children outright or have had their parental rights denied for irresponsible behavior resulting from psychological instability, criminal activity or addiction. Many parents are incarcerated. In many cases, the parents themselves were orphans; with no parental role models, they have simply repeated the cycle of child neglect and inevitable separation to which they themselves were subjected.

Russian orphans are children aged from birth to either 17 or 18 years old, at which time they are "emancipated" from (forced to leave) the orphanage system. Many children have been in the orphanage system since birth or from a very young age, leaving them with very little or no concept of family beyond that of the institution.

The life of a Russian orphan

In the childhood of a Russian orphan, he or she will be herded through a maze of state structures warded over by as many as three government ministries (Health, Education, and Labor and Social Development). These organizations all compete for limited state funds, overlap in their missions to watch over the children and are awash in bureaucracy and inefficiency that hearkens back to the Soviet era.

0-4 years: The orphan's future is decided

The first four years of a Russian orphan's life often determines the child's entire future. A dossier is prepared by the Ministry of Health when a new infant or toddler enters the system, and this set of documents follows the child throughout his or her entire young life. The diagnoses and opinions stored in the dossier are of crucial importance to the child's future opportunities.

When a newborn child is abandoned at a state-run hospital or maternity ward, he or she is observed by the hospital staff and is given various medical and developmental diagnoses based on what is known of the family history and birth. All risk factors are listed on the infant's chart in the initial diagnosis; since many babies inherit high risks from their mother, these newcomers to the world are often immediately deemed as "delayed" children. This term, noted in their dossier, will follow the child throughout his or her life, regardless of whether evidence to the contrary exists.

Abandoned infants and toddlers are kept in "baby houses" run by the Ministry of Health, where they reside for roughly four years. At any given time, at least 20,000 children inhabit baby houses in Russia. Financing of baby houses is the responsibility of the local governments, and it doesn't come cheaply; it is estimated that the cost to sustain one child in a baby house is 20-40% higher than in an average Russian family's home.

Despite the higher cost, baby houses do not provide nearly enough nurturing for their charges. The result is a set of ever-deepening black marks in an orphan's future. A lack of properly trained and sufficiently paid social workers, combined with as many as four years of collective living and no individual attention, often results in diagnoses of mental problems by the age of four. Even in the best cases, where staff is dedicated and a healthy environment is fostered as much as possible, a disturbing number of these small children are deemed by the Ministry of Education as "retarded" by their fourth birthday.

The Ministry of Education's review of a four-year-old child is perhaps the most important event of the orphan's life. Often using the information from a single visit with the child, the ministry's representative will determine the next institution to which the child will go. At this review, as many as 80% of Russian orphans, even those with the mildest of learning disorders, are considered mentally disabled. Of this group, 20% are deemed as severely mentally disabled or retarded. According to Human Rights Watch, "many Russian experts...sharply criticized this process, and could readily identify children who were certainly misdiagnosed." Nevertheless, the child's future has been largely determined before he or she has learned to read.

If the orphan is regarded as normal or only slightly delayed, he or she will most likely be sent to a typical state-run orphanage (dyetskii dom), where they will receive at least nine years of education and some opportunities after age 18. If the orphan is considered retarded, his or her childhood will be spent in a "correctional home," with little education and virtually no contact with Russian society. Those children originally misdiagnosed as retarded often end up fulfilling the diagnosis in the end, after years of exposure to the stultifying environment of the correctional home.

5-18 years: In a world apart from society

Children aged five and older are distributed to orphanages under the control of either the Ministry of Education or the Ministry of Labor and Social Development. The term "orphanage" generally refers to an institution where orphans live, eat, receive support, counseling and "upbringing," but attend local schools. However, this is not always the case. Institutions for "educable" orphans usually fall within the following three general categories:

Dyetskii dom: The most common institution for Russian orphans, the dyetskii dom (children's home) houses both boys and girls, but sends the children to regular neighborhood state-run public schools.
Internat: The internat is very similar to the dyetskii dom, except that the child's school is part of the orphanage complex. In this case, orphans may have very little contact with children who are not part of the orphanage system. (Some children will, for a variety of reasons, live and attend school at an internat, but return home for holidays and vacations.)
Uchebnii-Vospitatelnii Kompleks (UVK): The UVK is typically a large campus containing orphan residences and a school. Children from outside the orphan community often attend classes at the school; sometimes, these schools are tailored specifically for children with specific learning difficulties or physical disabilities.

"Educable" orphans are required to receive schooling through the ninth grade. At that point, the child can choose to continue school for a few more years to receive a full diploma or learn a trade such as carpentry, electricity, masonry or sewing. The orphan can also choose not to pursue further education altogether.

Because of the burgeoning number of orphans, these institutions, and the schools to which they send their children, must respond to and support a wide range of ages, ability levels and social conduct. It is not uncommon for a child to enter an orphanage at age 10 never before having attended school. It's also quite normal for a student to find herself in class with much younger classmates. This situation often creates a difficult dynamic between the child, its teachers and peers.

The orphanage system is a world apart from Russian society at large. Even for orphans who attend public schools during the day, a sense of separation from the "real world" is pervasive, as children from normal homes often tease their orphan classmates. Upon returning from school, children maintain an existence that at best provides friendship and guidance, and keeps them out of trouble; at worst, orphans are bullied, physically abused, intimidated and coerced by fellow orphans or orphanage staff. Moreover, children are often battling their own inner demons from the trauma of the events leading to and including their separation from their parents. With no one to turn to for help, many children run away from their institutions. If they are caught, they are sometimes regarded as abnormal and sent to psychiatric hospitals.

Orphanage staff are overworked, underpaid and challenged with complex problems from dozens of needy children. Many times, the adults working at an orphanage are doing so because they need the work, not because they are skilled or even interested in children's affairs. There are, however, a great many staff who are completely dedicated to these children who are not their own. Relying on local government for funding, the directors of these institutions often find themselves in heated competition with each other for scarce roubles. Most orphanage staff have no connections to the local community or to donor organizations and lack training in fundraising and publicity. Even if they did have such abilities, they have very little time to cultivate outside relationships because they're busy focusing on the daily needs of their children.

Even the most well-meaning of orphanage staff are often hard-pressed to affect change in orphanage society. Nearly everywhere, there simply aren't enough experienced and optimistic people to serve the needs of all the individuals in an orphanage. Often, a large orphanage will divide into smaller "family" groups in which older children take on the responsibility of watching out for the younger kids in their group. Even in such a scenario -- a situation in which the older children are plagued by their own problems -- the orphans may remain socially stunted and poorly prepared for a decent life as adults in the outside world.

18+ years: After emancipation

At age 18, an orphan is required to leave the only home he or she may have ever known, a forced ejection from the orphanage ironically referred to as "emancipation." The state legally must provide an orphan with an initial stipend, housing and employment upon emancipation; those who qualify to continue their education after emancipation can receive additional clothing and food allowances until age 23. The most fortunate individuals, of which there are only a small number, receive competent guidance and support from qualified adults in the first years when he or she is most vulnerable. (Friends of Russian Orphans is currently conducting a pilot program to provide such support in Yaroslavl.) In large part, however, the social safety net has eroded to the point where the benefits are nearly worthless, thanks in part to the devaluation of the rouble, the privatization of apartments and the lack of adequate vocational training for orphans.

The troubled economic situation and great social upheaval since the demise of the Soviet Union is problematic at best for most Russian citizens. For an orphan inexperienced in the ways of Russian society, the prospect of life in the outside world is a source of desperation. In the first year of living independently, an orphan's benefits are usually reduced to nothing. More than half of these young adults, many of whom had never even seen the inside of a store until they left the orphanage, are recruited to a life of crime or prostitution. At least 30% of orphans become addicted to alcohol and drugs. Many lose their apartments and end up on the streets; some try to sneak back into their former orphanages. With the weight of the world upon them and nobody to turn to, 10% of orphans commit suicide in their first year outside the orphanage.

How Russian society views orphans

The Russian citizenry is only very slowly awakening to its responsibility to support its growing number of children living without parents.

Soviet-era policies and practices plague the Russian Federation. During the years of the Soviet Union, orphans were deliberately pushed into an isolated subgroup. Orphanages didn't even exist in the official Soviet lexicon, although a sprawling system of orphanages was always sustained by the government. Little has changed to integrate orphans into society since the Soviet days; even adult orphans are still marked as dyetskii dom graduates on their identification cards. Despite hopeful first discussions on the issue by Russian leaders, no concrete steps have been taken on the federal level toward making orphans normal citizens. And within the state bureaucracy, all indications suggest that underfunding, disorganization, and inefficiency in the Russian orphanage system remain the norm.

The problem is not just at the governmental level. To change the mindset of the Russian people toward unwanted children is a formidable task, one that may take generations to achieve. The existing orphanage system was inspired by the Soviet philosophy that favored collective organization over individual care. This system continues to sustain the belief that the state can replace the family. Since most Russian citizens are struggling to make ends meet themselves, the status quo continues to be embraced -- and orphanages have failed to become a priority on the national agenda.

Initiatives to develop adoption and foster care systems are slowly beginning to appear in Russia, and foreign aid such as that which Friends of Russian Orphans provides is also making some impact. The government, in most cases, supports these measures, even though taxation issues and bureaucratic red tape often creates frustration and hinders speedy resolution to problems. Only with tireless effort, supreme dedication and boundless optimism from all concerned parties can the plight of the Russian orphan be turned into a happy ending.