Infidelity, Poverty, Irresponsibility

Government officials have submitted their analytical reports on family and child welfare in Ukraine to President Kuchma. They were presented and endorsed at a general meeting of interdisciplinary commissions for the protection of children and family policy. The well-being of Ukrainian families was analyzed in the period from 1991 to 2003, while child welfare was studied in terms of the problem of neglected and homeless children.

What has happened to the family institution in Ukraine over the past decade? It appears that the total number of family households in Ukraine has declined. According to censuses, in 1989 there were over 14 million versus 13.5 million in 2001. Meanwhile, during the same period the number of single adults increased from 3 million to 4.7 million. Statistically, every year one out of 4,000 Ukrainians files for divorce, and the number of divorces in rural areas is rising fast.

Scholars seeking to determine the causes of familial strife that lead to divorce have identified the primary cause as infidelity, followed by jealousy, bad living conditions, differences over the distribution of household chores, parental interference in the family life of the young couple, irresponsible attitudes toward the spouse, illnesses, and different approaches to raising children. Specialists tend to identify the general cause of family breakups as the married people’s unpreparedness for family life and unwillingness to give up their habits and preferences. As a result, nearly every third young family is incomplete — usually a single mother with a child.

Today families tend to become fragmented more often: grandparents live apart from their children and grandchildren and take a less active part in the upbringing of the latter. The old traditions of families with many children are disappearing: in the last ten years the number of large families has shrunk threefold. The authors of the report claim that most families regulate the number of children and when to have them. This is one of the causes of today’s demographic crisis. The declining birth rate is also due to the fact that Ukrainians tend to marry at an older age: women are getting married after the age of 26 and young men marry at age 30 on average. Only one out of four young families does not put off having children. Experts believe that today young people are less maternal and paternal, as they strive for greater personal and professional success, which competes with their need to procreate.

When they do have children, most families face financial difficulties. Ukraine ranks among countries with a very high level of social stratification in terms of welfare. The average level of material well- being of the ten richest Ukrainian households is six times higher than that of the ten poorest households. The most disadvantaged are families with more than one child under three years of age. As a rule, families with more children are poorer. In particular, 80% of families with more than five children are very poor. An average family can afford to spend a mere 2% of the family budget on the upbringing of its children. This clearly affects the quality of care and results in neglected and homeless children.

Depending on their relationship with the family and institutions that replace it, street children are divided into four main categories: orphans; children whose parents are alive but have severed all ties with them; children who alternate between living on the street and with the family; and children who spend their nights at home but days on the street without positive adult supervision. Ukraine has no official statistics on the numbers of street children. We only know that in 2003 more than 24,000 children were detained for vagrancy and over 10,000 for panhandling. The criminal police removed nearly 6,000 children from their families, while 700 were lost or abandoned. Most street children suffer from serious health problems, developmental disabilities, some degree of retardation, and pathological disturbances in personality development. Most runaways are older than six, but 10% of all children in shelters are between three and seven years of age. Most children living in shelters are teenagers (63%), and 24% of all problem children are older than fifteen. Street children migrate from oblast to oblast. The majority of runaways come from Zakarpattia, Donetsk, Kyiv, and Kirovohrad oblasts, as well as the Crimea. Most children run away from home because of alcoholism in the family. Eighty percent of all street children have one alcoholic parent. Seven percent of children at shelters have never been to school, and nearly as many interrupted their schooling no earlier than one year ago.

Rejection of the previous generations’ positive experiences, the absence of real ideals and prospects, and the lack of human affection and love are the factors that drive children from their families and onto the streets. Yet in each particular case such a decision is personally motivated. The main cause of the problem of street children is the crisis besetting the family institution. Experts note the decline of the authority of the Ukrainian family and its educational potential.