How it feels to be raised in an orphanage

Many reforms have been made in Russia since the early nineties, however, most have focused on economic and political agendas, with little attention allotted to the social and health sectors. While citizens were once encouraged to hand their children over to the State in the hope of giving them a better education and rearing, such institutions are today bursting at the seams and are unable to support the orphans they receive. The many childcare institutions established by the State are now rundown and understaffed. They are often overcrowded, sometimes with as few as two babysitters for 60 infants.

The problem of the inadequate number of orphanages available was further exacerbated by the 1999 law prohibiting the operation of orphanages by non-state organizations. Yet this is only part of the problem, for even if a child is taken in by an orphanage, the very principles on which most of these establishments function are unsatisfactory and often provide little real benefit to the orphan’s chance of leading a normal life after release.

To start with, every child handed over to an orphanage is diagnosed for developmental delays. And even the slightest abnormality, such as a harelip or speech impediment, leads the child to a “lying down” room where he is kept in bed most of the day, devoid of any kind of stimulation and suffering further deterioration from neglect.

At the age of four, children are diagnosed again. At this point in time, they are labeled either as “normal” and subsequently placed in an institution providing education and healthcare, or oligophrenic. In the latter case the children enter a psychoneurological internat, where their rights to education, healthcare, and protection from harm are entirely discarded. The label of “imbecile” continues to haunt these children throughout their stay at the internats and beyond. At the age of seventeen they are most often transferred to another institution of this type where their life is further voided by neglect and abuse. Even if they are allowed to enter the real world and search for a job, all efforts will be futile, as they are permanently stamped as being worthless.

Unfortunately, these diagnostic tests which pre-determine the fate of so many children, are highly discriminatory and inaccurate, with a 30-60 percent chance of misdiagnosis according to several independent studies. Yet, even those awarded the states of “normal” suffer from a severely incomplete education. Due to the institutionalized (control-oriented) mode of childcare used in orphanages, even “normal” orphans learn little beyond very basic social and labor skills. Throughout their stay at the orphanages, the children are completely cut off from society, and education revolves almost entirely around academics. Even if the children are lucky enough to be placed in an orphanage that sends them to a regular school, their life outside of school remains enclosed within the gates of the orphanage. As such, these institutions not only instill a sense of false security by isolating them from the outside world, but also turn a blind eye to whatever problems these children bring into the institution.

Topics like drug or sex abuse are regarded as taboo and are altogether avoided because it is assumed that such problems could not possibly touch these children if they are under control. If by chance some efforts are made to provide the children with prevention programs, the curriculum revolves around scare tactics, which does not properly educate the students about drugs or sex, but simply presents this issue as something they should never be involved in.

However, according to Miramed, which conducts an Independent Living and Social Adaptation Center in Moscow, every year thousands of 16-17-year-old orphans are returned to the streets equipped with no understanding of how to live independently. Apart from that, a few million abandoned or run-away children roam the streets of Russia. And such a predicament makes them all gravely vulnerable to drug-abuse and crime. This is especially true of young girls who are likely to fall victim to “white slavery”, which in turn places them at a very high risk of contracting HIV/AIDS and other STDs. These children are also highly prone to suicide.

So, the fate of literally millions of children in the face of such statistics is grim. Certainly, children are better off in orphanages than on the streets, but at the end of the day, for there to be a real change in these children’s lives, radical changes must be made within the walls of these establishments to provide education and drug prevention to those who are at most risk of being swallowed up by society’s worst vices.

Assignments

1) Find in the text words and phrases that mean the same as:

- being very easy to hurt or attack (adj.);

- likely to suffer or be affected by smth (usually smth undesirable) (adj.);

- children who don’t have parents (noun);

- being in very bad condition (adj.);

- filled with too many people (adj.);

- having not enough workers (adj.);

- to undergo (mental health) testing (verbal phrase);

- being branded as (phrase);

- lacking in any encouragement of activity (phrase);

- being strongly forbidden by social custom and avoided because thought to be offensive or embarrassing (noun/ adj.);