Published since 07.2002
Published on July 04, 2008
CHILDBIRTH IN ARMENIA: PROMOTE POPULATION, IMPOVERISH FAMILIES
- To promote childbirth and encourage large families the Armenian government has increased the one-time amount paid to families for the birth of a child. Since 2007 for each child families get for 100,000 drams ($323). When a third child is born to a family, the state grants the family 300,000 drams ($968) (the government started the policy in 2006). However state policy of supporting large families and encouraging childbirths do not change the social conditions of the families. They continuously work to survive and turn even poorer. Statistics show the larger the family becomes, the worse becomes its social condition. Almost half of the total number of families with 7 and more members in Armenia is poor. In 2007 123,792 families in Armenia received allowances. According to statistics the prevailing number of families receiving state allowances has underage children from 2 to 18 years, who make 75.9 percent of their total number. Families with multiple underage children is the best precondition to be included in the family allowance system targeted at needy families. Vanadzor, the third largest town in the republic represents just part of the total picture of poverty in the country. The Leningradyan district – one of the small house neighborhoods in Vanadzor – is a haven mainly to families in need. The wrecked small houses with the laundry of their residents drying up in front of them point to the social conditions of their owners. The large family of the Khachatryans lives in a one-room house. The small house hosts 10 at night. Even if they had a chance to get enough beds, the small space of the house wouldn’t let them put it inside. The Khachatryans hardly manage to have two large and one smaller bed, a small table, some chairs, baby carriage and a cupboard in the room. The two school aged sons of the family have no place to sleep in the house. Despite the normal mental aptitudes, the boys attend the school for mentally retarded children in Vanadzor and sleep there. “They get clothes there, and food,” their mother Lena Shestakova explains. Shestakova, a Russian by descent, is 43. She has delivered 10 children – 5 boys and 5 girls. Her two sons and the eldest daughter are adult and have their own families; but only one of the sons lives apart from the family, in the Russian Federation. Two of the remaining children also live apart from the family – in the orphanage of Vanadzor. The rest live in the small house. Lena’s husband has no permanent job. He used to be a guard last year but left the place because he only made 16,000 drams ($52) a month. The family survives on its pension and the allowance that make 50,000 drams ($161) a month. The money does not even reach the family as it covers the debts for communal expenses and adds to the old ones. “We hardly manage to buy bread, let alone thinking of any other food,” says Khachatryan. The family did not have the policy of large family encouragement in mind, especially as they have a problem of getting their daily bread. The husband is asked why they haven’t practiced birth control. “What condoms are you speaking about? We would buy bread, if we had the money.” Khachatryan believes the sum given by the state is too little to support large families especially taking daily increasing prices into account. Experts say it is mainly the needy families who take advantage of the state policy for encouraging births. “I have rarely seen a socially protected family having a third child,” says Narek Sargsyan, the head of the department for protection of children rights at the local administration of Lori province. Sargsyan says the reason is the educational level of the socially protected families who realize the hardships of raising and educating children. Sargsyan thinks the socially unprotected people’s attitude toward child birth is superficial because of the lack of at least an average level of education. “My work experience shows children born to socially unprotected families, unfortunately, appear in the street sent by the parents to beg; receiving no education, they become useless to society,” says Sargsyan. The births of new children in the socially unprotected families are a result of both misunderstanding of the responsibility for children and also of not getting timely medical help.(which is possibly to prevent some diseases) Aside from the low educational level and unawareness, specialists say, the birth of new children to socially unprotected children is a result of the lack of sexual culture – an unawareness of family planning. Psychologist Zarik Avetisyan has a long experience of working with socially unprotected families. “They could at least think they could have two children and raise them in normal conditions, but they are too far from that way of thinking.”
- Naira Bulghadaryan
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Today in Armenian history- 1762 The first publication of Yeznik Koghbatsi's "Yeghts Aghandots" by the Markos Publishing House, in Smyrna.
- 1818 The inhabitants of Zeytoon (Western Armenia) rebel against the exactions of the Pasha of Marash.
- 1823 Birth of Grigor Aghatonyan in Constantinople. He died in 1868.
- 1839 Death of Papa Hambardzoomian, composer and author of Armenian phonographs.
- 1847 Death of Hakob Chelepi Tyoozian, the imperial goldsmith. The "Europe" periodical was published by his initiative. He was born on 1793 01 03.
- 1902 International Meeting of Patriots takes place in Brussels. French public-political figure Jean Jaures (amongst others) devotes his speech to the Armenian Cause.
- 1902 An International Conference on the Armenian Question takes place in Brussels.
- 1908 Death of Armenian writer Missak Metsarents. He was born in 1886.
- 1930 Birth of Mher Mkrtchyan (actor). He died in 1993.
- 1992 Artsakh forces leave Martakert (Artsakh).
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