Landmark breakthrough for Belarus’s abandoned babies

The British charity Hope and Homes for children is set to develop a foster care system in Belarus - preventing thousands of babies being abandoned to harmful orphanages each year.

By redirecting funds into establishing foster care and preventing family breakdown, the Belarus Government hopes to put an end to children under the age of three entering state-run baby orphanages. Ultimately it aims to eliminate a culture of dependency that exists around the ‘homes’.

The groundbreaking u-turn in Belarus’s state-run childcare follows a ‘Round Table’ event in Minsk on November 9. Government officials, orphanage directors and specialist NGOs, such as UNICEF and the UK-based charity Hope and Homes for Children, all agreed there should be a legal restriction on placing children under the age of three in orphanages – unless they need specialist medical care. Belarus’s Parliament is now expected to adopt their recommendation.

There are more than 25,000 orphans and vulnerable children growing up without parental care in Belarus. An estimated 7,000 live in bleak orphanages – including 1,000 children under the age of three who live in 10 baby orphanages. Only 0.6 per cent of these babies are actually orphans, with nearly all having one living parent. As a result, Belarusian baby orphanages are more commonly known as baby institutions.

In 2004, a presidential decree called for an end to institutions for school-aged children. Since then Hope and Homes for Children has helped to close two institutions and establish alternative family-based care. It has taken seven years to realise the same commitment for Belarus’s babies.

Baby abandonment in Belarus is largely a result of poverty, family breakdown, an inability to cope with disabilities, young mothers and parental neglect through alcoholism.

Baby institutions are often overcrowded, clinical environments which work on regimented routines. Infants can be starved of interaction and stimulation, leading to serious physical, physiological and social consequences. Studies show how every 2.6 months spent in an institution before the age of three stunts a child’s growth by one month and significantly lowers their IQ levels. Provided they are placed in a family environment before the age of three, however, this damage can be undone within seven years.

Galina Swartz works for Hope and Homes for Children, which is a world leader in deinstitutionalisation - the EU and UNICEF backed process of closing institutions and returning children to families. Based in Minsk, Galina has been instrumental in convincing the Belarus Government to adopt foster care.

She said: “Creating a foster care system in Belarus is a landmark breakthrough – especially for babies.

“There are no regulations forbidding a child under the age of three being placed with a foster family, but until now most local authorities saw institutions as the habitual path – especially if the child had disabilities.

“This is tragic, as a baby’s first 1,000 days in an institution creates a legacy for life.”

Hope and Homes for Children is currently working closely with authorities to close one of Belarus’s largest baby institutions - The Gomel Institution. It is ‘home’ to 200 babies and will act as a model of best practice which can be rolled out across the country. The Government’s imminent move to establish foster care for infants will greatly aid the project.

Belarus became independent in 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Since 1994 it has been ruled by President Alexander Lukashenko. Political links with Russia and human right violations have led to the country’s international isolation. This has resulted in poor economic performance and standard of life. Poverty is crippling a third of the nation and remains the number one cause of family breakdown and child abandonment.

According to the Belarusian Ministry of Health, a third (65 per cent) of the babies abandoned to its institutions are disabled, with parents who feel unable to provide palliative care because of financial constraints and a lack of social services’ support.

Rising alcohol abuse rates are also sighted as a major factor towards the country’s baby abandonment problems. Nearly 20 per cent of babies in institutions have been taken from their parents by the Child Protection Agency and a further eight per cent have been abandoned by mothers who have fallen pregnant at a young age.

Despite being labelled by the United States as the only remaining "outpost of tyranny", Belarus is reforming its child practices for under threes before many of its Eastern European counterparts. Having worked in a Belarus since 2000, Hope and Homes for Children has been pivotal in helping the Government realise this change.