Armenia

Eurasianet covers Georgia’s local elections in the aftermath of the Russian Spy Scandal that has seen Moscow “punish” Tbilisi by closing the border between the two countries and persecute Georgian citizens in the country. Ironically, and to add to the damage that the blockade might cause Armenia, some of those citizens might be ethnic Armenians […]

Suarassy, Kashatagh Region, Armenian controlled Republic of Azerbaijan / Republic of Nagorno Karabakh © Onnik Krikorian / Eurasianet 2006
Eurasianet has published my article on the demographic crisis in and around Lachin, the strategic main artery connecting the Republic of Armenia with the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh. The article is part of an ongoing project […]

Samuel Kocharian, AGAPE Children’s Home, Berdzor (Lachin), Republic of Nagorno Karabakh © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2002
The Armenian News Network — Groong has just published another one of my interviews conducted in Lachin two weeks ago. The interview is one in a series for articles that will be published by Eurasianet and the Institute […]

Berdzor (Lachin), Kashatagh Region (Armenian-controlled Republic of Azerbaijan) © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2001-2003
In addition to work on the Specialized Children’s Home in Nor Kharberd, one of the largest photographic projects I’ve spent many years on has been settlement in the disputed territory sandwiched between Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh. Although recognized internationally as part […]

By Nessuna

When a friend of mine who has been studying in Moscow for the last few years visited Yerevan last summer, she didn’t remove her hat so as to prevent her skin from getting darker under the sun. Many times she personally witnessed racial intolerance, and at times brutal violence, aimed at at anyone with dark skin person in Moscow. At Yerevan’s Zvartnots aiport, coffins “arriving” from Moscow has been a usual sight for some time already.

Even so, the last month has seen an unprecedented increase in the number of racially motivated violence crimes on the streets of Russia. Apparently, there’s a reason for this, as Andrew Osborn writes in an article published by The Independent:

April 20, Hitler’s birthday, is always a time of increased tension in Russia since skinheads have promised to mark the occasion “by killing African or Asian people”. The human rights group Sova said that last year alone, citizens from at least 24 different countries were attacked [on different dates] and that the method rarely varied.

As Osborne states, if Russia “was the country to make “the most appalling sacrifices to defeat Nazi Germany 60 years ago” nowadays it is the country where “skinhead culture has taken hold like nowhere else”.

Forty-four people were killed in racially motivated murders last year, more than double the previous year, human rights activists say, and in many cases the perpetrators were young, white, bomber jacket-clad skinheads shouting neo-Nazi or nationalist slogans. They rarely shoot their victims, preferring to stab them repeatedly or beat them to death with chains or knuckle-dusters. And the odds are always stacked in their favour because they hunt in packs of at least three and pick the most vulnerable targets. Their ranks seem only to swell, from about a dozen in the early 1990s to up to 60,000 today.

Racially motivated violence is happening on a daily basis in Russia which is why news of a 17-year old Armenian being stabbed to death at the Pushkinskaya subway station in the center of Moscow on April 23 was nothing new to me. Armtown.com has more:

“The Fuehrer’s successors conquer Russian cities swifter than the Nazi troops in the autumn of 1941,” one of Moscow’s newspapers gives alarm on occasion of the murder of 17 years old Armenian student Vahan Abrahamiants.

What strikes one in this heinous crime is its unspeakable impudence that is certainly the result of assurance of staying unpunished. The headlines of Russian papers are evidence of that — “Student Slain In Front of A Dozen of People”, “Killing and Leaving by Train”, “Hitler Conquers Moscow” etc.

However, the 17-old Armenian’s murder apparently triggered a massive protest in Moscow, as well as discussion on one of the Armenian blogs as well as a local forum. Unfortunately, the general consensus seems to be that “the bastards will go unpunished and it all starts to resemble state policy.” In fact, many blame the Russian government for negligence:

“It is clear even to a kid that without the connivance of the authorities, there will be no skinhead disease,” “the authorities have to react from the very beginning on such displays [of xenophobia] and kill it in the first stages so the others will learn the lesson.”

According to Andrew Osborn, the Russian authorities say that the skinhead problem is exaggerated, and all countries face similar problems, but I wonder how exactly Russian officials explain the sentencing of the killers of a nine-year old Tajik girl brutally knifed 11 times in front of her father to 5 years in prison. When asked if they felt sorry for the girl, her killers replied cynically, “When you kill cockroaches you don’t feel sorry for them, do you?”

BRANDED: A member of the neo-Nazi group Schultz88 shows off his fascist tattoos © SERGEY MAXIMISHIN for TIME

While reflecting on the murder of the 17 year-old Armenian in Moscow, David at Lawyer’s Notes is puzzled by something else:

What is surprising is that in Armenia, and even in Russia, Armenians think of Russia as their friend and strategic ally, while considering Americans and Europeans, if not their enemies, then potential adversaries.

Suddenly increasing its prices of gas, Russian government, forced Armenia to sell the 5th unit of the biggest Hrazdan power plant to Russia, therefore losing control over Iranian gas pipe line, the only hope for power independence from Russian energy sharks. At the same time the USA gives out 200 mln. dollars for developing infrastructure, and lots more for humanitarian aid and other projects for technical assistance. The attitude does not change – Americans and Europeans, living in Armenia, are spies, while Russians are friends and defenders.

Where is the logic? Maybe then it is just an ideology propagated by the authorities? Then the question is why do the authorities need it? I think there is an answer to that, an obvious one… for those who are able to think.

To show these new facists in their “glory,” an Armenian forum has posted some photographs.

Kjell Engebretsen, Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) Country Director, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Hetq Online 2006

After mentioning the problem of Internally Placed Persons (IDPs) as a result of cross border shelling, landmines, the deterioration of infrastructure and a lack of investment in areas bordering Azerbaijan it was coincidental but interesting to be asked by Hetq Online to interview the new Country Director of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) this morning. I had previously interviewed Engebretsen’s predecessor a year and half or so ago.

Central to this brief interview was the issue of possibly inflated figure for the number of refugees and IDPs in Armenia and the necessity for allowing them to return to their homes in the event of a peace deal being signed to end the conflict over Nagorno Karabakh. Regardless of what many Armenians might think, the return of territory and the right to return for Azerbaijani refugees will be part of any deal. There is no question about that.

OK: When I interviewed your predecessor, Tim Straight, about a year and a half ago, he mentioned that a survey on Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) was going to be taken in Armenia in cooperation with the Armenian Government. This is a new focus for the NRC, and I wondered has the survey been held and what were the findings?

KE: It was held and the result was that the figures for the number of IDPs in Armenia decreased considerably from 70,000 to 8,000.

OK: That’s quite a decrease. We’re talking about those regions of Armenia bordering Azerbaijan where there’s still a problem with landmines as well as a lack of infrastructure and investment so what’s the reason for this reduction?

KE: That’s still a problem, but I don’t know what the reason is for this reduction. However, I would suspect that the explanation is the same when it comes to refugees and the population in general. A lot of people flee the country for a while. They go to Russia or the United States and we hope that they’ll come back one day.

OK: There’s been a survey on IDPs, but another contentious issue is the number of refugees [from Azerbaijan] in the country. We’re still working with the figure of over 250,000, but I’ve heard anecdotal evidence that it might be as low as 80-90,000. It’s significantly smaller as well. Does anybody know?

KE: No one knows, but UNHCR is holding a survey now and I think that the number of refugees in Armenia will also be lowered quite a lot as well. The Government has its figure, but we think that it’s too high and UNHCR is absolutely certain that this number will go down after the survey is completed this year.

OK: At the moment there’s a lot of talk about the return of IDPs in Azerbaijan and refugees in Armenia to their former homes in and around Nagorno Karabakh once a peace deal is signed. Most recently, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State referred to this issue and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) is also including the matter on its agenda. Is the Norwegian Refugee Council and UNHCR involved in this matter?

KE: No, in Armenia we are not. However, our office in Baku is looking into this very carefully, of course. It should happen, but the situation in Azerbaijan is very different from that in Armenia because here we’re still struggling with the economy, whereas Azerbaijan has become very, very rich. If something were to happen regarding Nagorno Karabakh or the areas surrounding it, that would have to happen after some kind of peace deal.

OK: When some people talk of the return of IDPs to territory surrounding Nagorno Karabakh, and we’re talking about Azerbaijanis and Kurds, some Armenians don’t understand why there should be the “right to return” included in any peace deal. Maybe this is a political question, perhaps, but in your opinion, why is it important that refugees and IDPs have the “right to return?”

KE: Well, lets put Nagorno Karabakh aside and talk about the area surrounding it. As far as I understand, and this is accepted by Armenia as well, that land is considered to be an occupied area — a security zone around Karabakh. If there was an agreement then I guess that this area surrounding Karabakh would be given back to the Azeris. I don’t know much about this, but I think that this would be the situation.

If this happened, then of course the people that lived there would be entitled to return to their homes. That’s the way I see it.

Anyway, the full interview can be read online here, and there’s also an article on moves to find a solution to the Karabakh conflict by local analyst Tatul Hakobyan here. According to recent news reports, the CE, EU and US are still undaunted by the failure to achieve a much anticipated breakthrough in ending the deadlock over Nagorno Karabakh.

However, nothing is certain as to whether 2006 will herald a long anticipated pece deal that should go some way in bringing peace and stability to part of the South Caucasus region.

Refugee, Silikyan, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 1994

Refugee children, Silikyan, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2004

Specialized Boarding School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimeda 2002

Since 2002, one of my main projects has been the issue of children enrolled into state-run residential institutions. Despite its smaller size, somewhere between 11-12,000 children attend or reside in over 50 boarding schools and children’s homes in Armenia. In neighboring Georgia, where initiatives to de-institutionalize children are years ahead of Armenia, there are only 5,000. It’s therefore with great interest that I read ArmeniaNow.com’s article on plans to close 12 specialized boarding schools.

Angry teachers have condemned a government decision to close secondary schools for nearly 1,000 orphaned and socially vulnerable children.

Officials in the Ministry of Education and Science want to integrate children in the 12 special secondary institutions into mainstream schools. They argue that separate schools for orphans and other children who lack proper parental care simply isolates them from the rest of society.

But staff in the schools insist that their children face special problems and that closure will damage their emotional and educational welfare.

According to the government’s decision, the special schools should be converted into regular secondary schools by the end of 2007. Special boarding centers would be created to meet the needs of children who were unable to go home.

“These children are by no means deficient compared to their peers, they don’t need special education; so why separate them from the society?! Implementation of this decision will integrate them into society,” says Louiza Gharibyan, representative of the Agency for Family Issues at the Ministry of Labor and Social Issues.

However, I don’t like the use of the word “orphans” in this article because the vast majority of children attending specialized boarding schools have parents and families. Instead, these kids attend boarding schools generally intended for children with disabilities because they can receive food, and even though these schools have facilities for children to stay overnight, most attend on a daily basis or at the very least return to their families at weekends. Nevertheless, the Directors of such schools are not happy with plans to close or convert them.

“It will be the same with these schools as it was with the vocational colleges when they closed them and now spend huge sums to restore them,” says Simon Simonyan, Principal of the Yerevan Special School for Orphans and Children Deprived of Parental Care # 3.

Simonyan believes there is still a need in this type of school and it will be possible to close them only in 10 to 15 years, when social conditions in Armenia have improved.

“You will simply kick 1,000 children into the street by eliminating this type of school, for many here are on the edge of delinquency and need special attention and pedagogical work, something an ordinary school cannot provide,” he says.

Samvel Mktrchyan, Principal at the Special School #7, thinks that the problems faced by these children will not disappear because of the entrance into force of this new law. They exist and need special attention, he says.

“There is no need to develop theories, just look at the reality with an open mind. Children of this category cannot integrate into a group of well-off and indulged children; they will not go to ordinary school,” says Mkrtchyan.

According to Mktrchyan the main reasons for not going to a mainstream school are social and psychological.

“Take the simplest situation: the pupil will not able to pay for textbooks, will not be able to pay for a party with the class, and will not be able to take part in buying a present for a teacher. This will isolate him from school and society even more, a bigger psychological complex will develop in him, more than it would if he had stayed in this kind of school,” Mktrchyan explains.

Specialized Boarding School, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimeda 2002

Sorry to sound cynical, but they would say that as these children represent their livelihood. Indeed, there is no question that most of these schools should be closed down. After all, such establishments don’t exist in the West where alternative models of care exist for children that are really deprived of parental care. For example, there is fostering and kinship care or integration into and normal schools, and it is these models that the Armenian government, international organizations and the World Bank are now looking at. I touched upon this in a recent article for UNICEF.

“There are many reasons why children with parents are deprived of parental care in Armenia,” explains Avetisyan. “First of all there is poverty, then centralization of special education within the boarding school system and finally, the absence of alternatives and community-based support services for vulnerable families at risk.”

In 2000, UNICEF invited an international consultant to conduct a study on residential care institutions in Armenia.

Based on the recommendations of the resulting report, alternatives to institutionalization were discussed in round table discussions with the Ministries of Health, Education, Social Welfare, Justice and Police. A three year plan of action was developed and UNICEF, the Armenian Government and NGOs collaborated together on the implementation of a work plan.

[…]

Now, the Armenian Government is interested in de-institutionalization through family reintegration, foster care and the prevention of institutionalization through community-based support centers. It has also developed a law that obliges the state to provide support to “graduates” from Children’s Homes once they reach the age of 18.

“Even if you create excellent conditions in the institution, when the children leave this artificial environment they have no life skills or the capacity to deal with daily problems,” Avetisyan says. “For example, studies show that as a result, many of these children end up in conflict with the law and some girls become prostitutes and are more prone to trafficking.”

Specialized Boarding School, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimeda 2002

Perhaps the main issue that many overlook is that the majority of children enrolled into specialized boarding schools intended for kids with disabilities are actually not disabled at all. At the same time, those children with disabilities are often prevented from attending schools set up for them because it is easier for teachers to deal with “normal” children instead even if it means that they will not develop their full potential. Again, I touched upon this in an article written in 2002.

A mother waits patiently to enroll her son at an Auxiliary Boarding School for children with learning disabilities somewhere in the heart of the Armenian capital. It doesn’t seem to matter to the staff that the twelve-year old isn’t disabled, all the school requires, the Director says, is a medical certificate.

But, with salaries low in the medical sector, many doctors are all too willing to provide fake diagnosis to parents wishing to enroll their children into residential institutions. In fact, Dennis Loze, Project Coordinator for Mission East’s Mosaic Program in Armenia says that 85% of children already residing in Auxiliary Boarding Schools are falsely diagnosed.

“They are accepting children with no problem whatsoever because parents cannot afford to clothe and feed them,” he says, adding that Mission East had to literally fight to have three children with Down’s syndrome admitted into one boarding school after being told by the Director that she now only accommodated ‘normal’ children.

Suspicions that this was not the case were later confirmed by the Ministry of Education and Science. However, so serious is the problem that the Armenian Government has decided to address the issue in a national program of actions targeted towards the protection of children’s rights, including reform of the admission system.

“With the declining level of services in residential institutions, the current trend is creating an underclass of children marked by poverty, stigmatization and a lack of proper care and education who are likely to lack opportunity as adults,” writes Aleksandra Posarac and Jjalte Sederlof in the World Bank’s Armenian Child Welfare Note for June 2002.

“To the extent that such children end up in institutions for the mentally disabled, which offer only a special education syllabus for children with mental disability,” they continue, “their development will be seriously hampered by lack of educational opportunities.”

Boarding Schools were established during the soviet era for children with developmental, physical and emotional disabilities and while a 1985 Soviet Decree permitted the admission of children from vulnerable families into Secondary Boarding Schools, Auxiliary Boarding Schools were only meant to cater for children with specific medical or psychological needs.

But, with a sizeable proportion of the population living below the poverty line, many families are increasingly looking to residential institutions to provide what the First Deputy Minister of Social Security, Ashot Yesayan, calls in a report to be published by Family Support America next year, “the primary ‘social safety-net’ for their children.”

[…]

“Children are removed from their families as the only alternative to remaining hungry,” says Nicholas McCoy, the author of the report. “Even if that means committing them to a residential institution or sending them out onto the streets to work, research shows that vulnerable children are not necessarily the victims of earthquake and war but come primarily from economically deprived families.”

Specialized Boarding School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimeda 2002

At the Boarding School for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Yerevan, for example, only 40 percent of the kids can’t see. The rest are from socially vulnerable families. In other cases, international organizations have had to fight to get children with disabilities enrolled into the very institutions they’re meant to be, although that’s not to say that many couldn’t be integrated into mainstream education.

I also have good reason to suspect that the best interests of the children are furthest from the mind of staff at some boarding schools. One international aid worker gave me an example of this four years ago, although one hopes this the exception rather than the rule.

[…] while Children’s Homes in Armenia have received substantial support from the large Armenian Diaspora, conditions in over fifty Boarding Schools have deteriorated considerably since independence. One Director, for example, is believed to keep conditions as bad as possible in order to attract extra finance from international organizations working in the republic — money that the children will never see.

“Mission East has stopped dealing with this Director completely because we understand that there is a greater incentive for him to keep conditions as they are,” says Loze. “Whatever resources directed to him will simply disappear.”

But Naira Avetisyan, UNICEF’s Child Protection Officer, is quick to point out that the staff at most boarding schools and children’s homes in Armenia are genuinely concerned with the well-being of those entrusted into their care. “However,” she adds, “the importance of strengthening vulnerable families by providing them with job opportunities has to be emphasized rather than supporting the institutions.”

But, with few exceptions, conditions in Armenia’s Boarding Schools are poor, with international organizations having to operate feeding programs in some schools so that the children can at least receive their basic nutrition. The Armenian Relief Society (ARS), for example, operates three such feeding programs in Yerevan alone, but for the most part, children are undernourished.

“This can easily be observed in the faces and stature of most of these children,” says McCoy. “They are noticeably thin, have drawn faces and many are stunted in growth and small for their age. At the majority of boarding schools, the diet consists mainly of carbohydrates such as pasta, potatoes and bread while few can afford to serve fruit, vegetables or meat.”

Specialized Boarding School, Kapan, Siunik Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimeda 2002

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that most of Armenia’s specialized boarding schools should be closed and, as the Georgian and Armenian government consider is best, with those children really deprived of parental care placed in foster or kinship care less, and those with less than severe disabilities being integrated into mainstream education as NGOs such as Bridge of Hope and World Vision are doing in the Tavoush, Shirak and Siunik regions. Attitudes also need to change.

“My daughter was born with Cerebral Palsy,” says one mother whose child has benefited from the work of the NGO. “Relatives tried to convince me that my daughter, Ashkhen, wasn’t normal and would destroy my life and that of my family. My husband abandoned me and I was left alone with my child.”

Ashkhen grew up in isolation and was deprived of the opportunity to interact with other children until she was later enrolled into a specialized boarding school that offered only a watered-down curriculum for children with learning disabilities. Separated from her mother for most of the week, Ashkhen returned home on weekends. In 1996, however, when her mother heard about the Bridge of Hope NGO, Tatevik was eager to find out more.

“When I entered the center the first thing I noticed was that there were non-disabled children there,” she says. “I never thought that disabled and non-disabled children could relate to each other.” Sixty percent of the children that attend are not disabled and of those that are, nearly half are diagnosed with cerebral palsy and a third with Down’s Syndrome.

Over the years, while still attending the specialized school, Tatevik says that Ashkhen developed quickly, becoming more communicable and confident. In 1999, at the age of 15, Bridge of Hope helped Ashkhen make the move to a regular school close to where she lives. She is now one of the most active and high-achieving children in her class and thanks to including both disabled and non-disabled children in the centers, stereotypes are being broken down.

Of course, there will be problems if alternative models of care, including community care centers, are not established first.

“There are many reasons why children with parents are deprived of parental care in Armenia,” explains Avetisyan. “First of all there is poverty, then centralization of special education within the boarding school system and finally, the absence of alternatives and community-based support services for vulnerable families at risk.”

“The majority of children in children’s homes and boarding schools are not orphans,” she continues. “They have parents and the right to live with their families.”

But, while some organizations conclude that Armenia’s Boarding Schools should be closed, such plans could create additional problems unless the root cause of the problem is addressed. UNICEF and the Armenian Ministry of the Interior estimate that there are as many as 400 children street children in Yerevan and numbers could increase if others are removed from care and effectively thrown out onto the streets.

Susanna Hayrapetyan, Social Sector Operations Offer for the World Bank’s Office in Yerevan, says that the international financial organization favors a phased approach as part of the Armenian Government’s overall Poverty Reduction Strategy. “It can’t happen overnight,” she explains. “It needs special consideration and a transition phase of at least a year and a half.”

As a result, in a wide-ranging ten-year National Program for the Protection of Children’s Rights in Armenia, the Armenian Government and NGOs working in this area propose introducing measures that will include steps taken to prevent the enrolment of children into boarding schools and the return of those already in residential institutions to their families.

“It is extremely difficult to measure the impact that removing a child from their home environment has,” says McCoy. “And, although it is too early to substantiate claims that the well-being of children placed in residential care will be affected, it may very well take an entire generation before we fully understand the social and psychological ramifications of this phenomenon.”

“However,” he concludes, “institutionalizing children only perpetuates the problem of social vulnerability in Armenia by seriously undermining the development of programs that could support the family and keep children out of institutions.”

Specialized Boarding School, Sisian, Siunik Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimeda 2002

The one exception, perhaps, would be the Specialized Boarding School for the Deaf in Nor Nork where all the children can’t hear. Moreover, the staff and parents are all very active in creating the best school for the children that they can given modest expenditure from the State Budget. Apparently, the deaf community in every country is always well organized and active, and it’s nice to see that Armenia is no exception. If any institution deserved support it’s this one.

Specialized Boarding School for the Deaf, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimeda 2002