Commissioner for Children’s Rights: Every 30th child in Ukraine brought up in residential facility
Every 30th child in Ukraine lives in a residential facility.
This was stated by Ukrainian Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights Mykola Kuleba, describing this fact as the tragedy for society and each individual.
“This is a real war in orphanages where children suffer not less than during the actual fighting. The solution to this problem is not just an issue of funding or political decisions, which is, of course, important. It is an issue of society’s attitude to their children and change of values in the state policy and society as a whole,” Mykola Kuleba said at the opening of “Summit of Superheroes for Children. From Vision to Change.”
More than 100,000 children in Ukraine and about 8 million children in the world are brought up in residential facilities. 90% of them got there because of poverty of their parents, inability to bring up children on their own, developmental disorders, etc.
The government institutions that were established to protect children and their parents are no longer able to ensure the unity of the family and help parents overcome temporary difficulties. The system primarily focuses on the residential facilities themselves, while children’s rights and education in the family has not become a priority for the Ukrainian government. A similar situation is observed in most countries of Eastern and Central Europe and Asia.
Settlement of these problems requires a reorientation of values of state policy, focusing on a child.
“I am shocked by the number of children in residential facilities, especially if children living there have at least one parent and could live in the family. The shift of values in the state policy requires fundamental reforms and strong international support, external expertise, engaging experience of other countries,” British Ambassador to Ukraine Judith Gough said.
