Soviet system ‘has failed its children’

Press, 29 July 1989, Page 17

Soviet system ‘has failed its children’

By

JIM HEINTZ,

New York, NZPA-AP.

During times of deprivation, Soviets have comforted themselves with the belief that their children would have better lives, but glasnost is making them painfully aware of how untrue that can be, according to a Soviet journalist.

“There was an expression that ‘Children are the only privileged class,’ ” said Natalie Darialova. That belief was easy to maintain during the decades that officials did not acknowledge social problems, and considered those who did to be undermining communism. But now, under the recent policies of more openness, Soviets are finding that the system has failed the children, leaving them neglected at home or stupefied with. boredom, she said.

An estimated 300,000 are consigned to orphanages that Ms Darialova said do little more than feed and clothe them. In a recent interview in New York while on a private trip, Ms Darialova said the root of the problems was the top-heavy bureaucracy and the corruption that flourished during Leonid Brezhnev’s years as Soviet leader. In addition, she said, society’s pressure on women to work — and their need for the extra income — forced many families to neglect their children. A prominent Soviet sociologist reported last year that 94 per cent of Soviet adult women worked, and that working mothers spent an average of just 30 minutes a week "on spiritual communica-

tion with their children.” Ms Darialova began investigating the problems of youth in 1985 when she was assigned by the weekly Literary Gazette (Literaturnaya Gazeta), to do a story about five children who died in a house fire. The children had been left unattended. When she asked local authorities why the parents hadn’t been able to find someone to watch the children, “I found that noone was in charge of child welfare.” “The local Soviets (councils) had no authority, no money. They were the poorest bodies. “Under Brezhnev, social and cultural pro-

grammes were cut. Much money went to who knows where,” she said. The bleakness of life in many Soviet cities is, in effect, a sort of child abuse, Ms Darialova said. Many children have little to do with their free time and energy. That can lead to street crime, which Soviet figures say has risen by about 40 per cent in the past year, or other antisocial behaviour. One press report bemoaned motorcycle gangs made up of “minors who like to ride with the wind.” “Imagine a city with no cultural facilities. Children can go out and buy a bottle of wine, and the road to crime is open,” she said, explaining that “cultural facilities” meant movies and places to hear rock music, as well as

opera and classical music. Although the Government has begun an extensive programme to combat alcohol abuse by raising prices and increasing the drinking age to 21, it has not reduced children’s desire to combat boredom through intoxication, she said. They haVe learned, like their counterparts in the West, that a medicine cabinet can provide a cheap and convenient, if unreliable, high, she said. Ms Darialova said the nadir of the system is its orphanages, which “yield awful crops... One of 10 criminals comes from the orphanages.” “The main problem is the lack of spiritual care, lack of affection,” she said.