What is keeping children in orphanages when so many people want to adopt?
The decision to adopt a child is a big choice for a couple to make and once
they have agreed on it they are usually eager to bring their new baby or
child home. However, as elsewhere, adopting a child in the Czech Republic
can be a long and painful process. There are long queues of childless
couples waiting to adopt kids- and seemingly - a lack of children. Yet at
this time there are 22 thousand children in institutional care waiting to
find new homes. Dr. Petra Vrtbovska from the Prague Institute for Foster
Care explains what's keeping them there:
"As in many other countries there are a lot of couples here who want
to adopt children but these people usually want healthy, white, new-born
babies. There is a lack of such children and queues and queues for newborn
babies. So it is a mistake when people say "we would like to adopt
kids and kids are not available". The twenty two thousand
institutionalized children who are waitin to find a home are older, they
have some relationship with their biological parents and they often have
physical or psychological problems - as a result of which it is much
harder to find new homes for them. For them the best type of care would be
foster care - in some cases adoption - but placement needs to be supported
so that the parents understand these children and are able to help them -
not just give them a home - in most cases that is not enough. "
Although it may take years, an abused or abandoned child who finds a new
home at a relatively early age still has a fair chance to overcome their
insecurity, learn to trust people and interact in a family and wider
social environment. But for the thousands who never manage to leave the
orphanage life is much harder. In the Czech Republic this concerns mainly
Romany children. Those who end up in an orphanage have little chance of
ever finding a new family. Dr. Vrtbovska again:
"As far as Romany children are concerned there are two sides to the
problem. One is a hidden prejudice against Romany kids - the racist belief
that every Roma kid will steal, every Roma kid is lazy. So there is
prejudice. At the same time ethnicity plays a certain role in how we are,
how we behave. It determines our temperament and emotions and when people
adopt a Romany child they should understand that the children will grow up
as a Romany and may be different from them. So personally I would encourage
people to adopt a Romany child but only those people who can appreciate
diversity, who can handle children who will be different from them and
that is not the case with everyone."
Experts in the field are doing their best to help families who have
children in foster care or have adopted a child to overcome all possible
hurdles and build a relationship founded on trust. There is now a drive to
ease the way for both parents and children in order to give as many
institutionalized children as possible the chance to be part of a normal
family. Dr. Vrtbovska says that those who do not get this chance are
heading for big trouble.
"In the Czech Republic children's homes still look very, very
old-fashined. There are still thirty, forty or fifty children in one big
building. And the educational groups are still made up of at least eight
children. They are moved from one section to another, from one institution
to another and combined with the original trauma this type of life-style
leads to future disasters. Most of these young people are seriously
disturbed. It is an emotional and social problem -because these
institutions are able to feed kids - they have got clothes and they are
not hungry but emotionally and socially these young people are not able to
function which creates an enormous ongoing trauma in them."
Apart from the emotional damage institutional care does to individual
children, it also has a wider impact on society as a whole.
"It is also very difficult for society because these people end up in
the streets, on drugs, in psychiatric clinics, prisons... so it creates
very big problems on both sides. But I always tend to pity those poor
young people more because they suffer enormously and society should do
something about it when they are young. It is very difficult to do
something about it when they are twenty-five."
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Apart from the emotional damage institutional care does to individual
children, it also has a wider impact on society as a whole.
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