Child Poverty in Eastern Europe

It does get a little repetitive forever casting up the fact that we live in a world of abundance that can provide for all yet fails to provide even the necessities of a decent life for many . But i have no intention of desisting or forgetting . Read and weep .

To-day UNICEF released a report appealing to Eastern European and Central Asian governments to pay more attention to child poverty. Across South-East Europe and the former Soviet Union it found millions of children were living in extreme poverty .

In some countries 5% of children lived in extreme poverty, but in the poorest parts of Central Asia it nears 80%.

The number of children in poverty in the region - 18 Million .

One in four children in the region lives in a household with a daily income of less than $2.15

In Bulgaria, where children comprise just 20 per cent of the population, the child poverty rate is 8 per cent. But in parts of Central Asia and the Caucasus, more than half the children are living in poverty.

Children in institutional care:
Russia: 1.4%
Serbia & Montenegro: 0.2%
( One of the main reasons for children being put in institutions is household poverty e.g. For many of the over 5,400 children living in Georgia’s residential institutions, being orphaned may have been preventable. Most of them still have living parents. But with approximately 50 per cent of families in this post-Soviet country living below the poverty line, it is understandable that parents often see institutionalization as the only solution. )

At least 500,000 of Moldova’s 3.6 million people have left the country in search of work. Left behind are an estimated 150,000 to 270,000 children without either a mother or a father, and around 40,000 who are separated from both parents.
Some of these children live with relatives or neighbours, while others are left in the care of institutions.

“I see my mother in my dreams a lot,” says Maria “I see her coming home and staying with me. I always dream about her coming home”.

A sad world , ain't it