John 14 : 18 I will not leave you
orphans; I will come to you.
The Russian government has little resources
to help the children once they graduate from an orphanage. By Russian
law, every child in an orphanage must be moved out or they have
to be formally employed at the orphanage by their 18th birthday.
Since most facilities are barely making it financially they usually
do not hire the orphan. So on the child's 18th birthday, the child
is graduated from the facility, given what little belongings they
own themselves and they are taken out the doors. They are removed
from the orphanage that was their world, into a world that could
care little about the welfare of one more child.
A child's chances of experiencing
success after graduation is largely dependant on several factors:
The orphanage they graduated from.
The location in Russia of the orphanage.
The connections that the orphanage
staff have with local officials.
The physical and mental health of the
child.
To some extent, the education they received
at the orphanage.
The orphanage staff tries as hard as they
can to get each graduate a job. Many of the boys go into the military
in Russia, a few make it to college (less than 3%), some actually
get a job outside the orphanage. Of those that actually get jobs,
many of these kids fail to stay employed due to continued social
and relational problems. Sometimes the orphanage will get a female
graduate a housekeeping job in a private home. These girls are
especially vulnerable to abuse within these homes. Approximately
60% of these girls find themselves without employment after a
year. Many of those have suffered physical and sexual abuse in
the home they worked in.
Most of these graduates leave the orphanages with minimal job
training, minimal education and little prospects for employment.
Every year 15,000 orphans graduate from these orphanages. 6,000
become homeless, 5,000 are unemployed, 3,000 turn to crime and
are sent to children's prisons and 1,500 of them commit suicide
before they reach their 21st birthday. In addition, many female
children that end up in the streets are raped, they become pregnant
and some are even murdered.
Some of the boys that end up on the streets will find themselves
in prison for serious crimes such as murder and some are imprisoned
for other crimes such as stealing food from a street vendor due
to their inability to obtain food.
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