The number of children in Ukraines overcrowded and poorly financed orphanages has grown by 10 to 15 percent in the past year, according to a survey conducted by the International Womens Club and the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy School of Social Work.
The survey, conducted in 109 orphanages and boarding schools in May, showed that most of the children in the countrys orphanages have been abandoned by their parents. There are frequent cases of parents refusing to claim newborn babies from hospitals, or referring children to state care because of mental or physical disabilities. In many other instances, the state strips parents of custody rights.
At the Dnipropetrovsk orphanage for babies with nervous system and psychological disorders, 77 of the 200 babies in residence were abandoned by their parents. Thirty-seven of these came from the families that could not support them, while 35 were removed from parental custody by the state. Just two babies were sent to the facility because both parents had died.
The survey also revealed that facilities for babies are often adequate, while facilities hosting 300 to 400 children ages 7 to 17 have problems getting clothes and textbooks.
Many orphanages and boarding schools are receiving foreign and domestic non-governmental assistance. A boarding school hosting 280 children in the village of Beregin in Zakarpattia received medicines, clothes and hygienic items from Holland, Denmark and Norway in April, as well as medicines from a charity run by Lyudmila Kuchma, the wife of Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma. Sometimes the assistance is strictly local: an orphanage in the Zaporizhia region received watermelons from local farmers last year.
They were not the only Ukrainians with a growing interest in supporting orphanages. Banks, private companies, state enterprises and government agency employees are contributing food, clothing and money, according to the Kyiv-Mohyla survey. However, most boarding schools still lack sponsors and humanitarian assistance. Orphanage and school directors named footwear and medicines among the items they most desperately need.
Adoption continues to be rare. For example, only four of 300 children at the boarding school in the Khmelnytskiy Region village of Vovkovintsy were adopted over the past year. Two other children were close to being adopted, but their natural parents intervened. In general, adoptions are more common among children at urban orphanages, according to the survey.
