Interview with the chairwoman of the "Children's support center" of the Fund of Armenian Relief Mira Antonyan

You are working with children who appeared in vulnerable situations. What kind of children's abuse you face?

There are many victims of neglect, disregard and victims of emotional nature in Armenia. There are few registered cases of violation of child's rights of physical or sexual nature. However there are so many neglected children in our country.  We face thousands of cases. There is a lack of kindness in this society, lack of spirituality.

If you look at the statistics, Armenia is in a very good situation: by the number of registered cases we are in a very good situation. However there are a great number of unregistered cases. Why they are not registered, because we are indifferent. We live next to them and believe that it should be like this. 

Is it true that children from poor families are becoming victims more frequently?

No, violence is more visible in poor families but in the rich and wealthy families there are more victims of physical, sexual abuse and emotional neglect. They just have their ways to conceal those cases. For example, they give money to the medical doctors, invite them to home and no one is aware about the case. If the victim is hospitalized, the case should be registered.

When, how and from whom the child should learn what is the violence and how to be protected? 

Our research on trafficking showed that it is possible to speak about cruel treatment even with a 5-year old child and a child is able to describe what is good and what is bad for him/her. It means that for any age we should choose to speak in accessible language about that and we should help children to differentiate good and bad treatment. 

We also should teach protection mechanisms based on the age. The research showed that enormous sum of money, means and efforts are spent for awareness however the awareness itself is not a protection tool. To be aware does not mean to be ready to resist. Even when people know there is a trafficking, they think that it is something   that can only happen in the deserts of Dubai and does not relate to our reality. I know that there is such a thing but I do not protect myself because I think that it is not going to happen with me. It is necessary to give a tool to a child for protection. The violation is something that is not easy to determine and discover. And if it was discovered and you have decided to punish the perpetrator, it is necessary to think about the victims as well. When we work with the victim, we are striving to have a society where there are no violators. This is the task.

Awareness is not sufficient. It is only half of the work and it means not effective use of money. It is necessary to go to the next step and to teach children how to protect themselves, give them tools, at least hot line number. So, the child will know what to do if he/she appears in such a situation.

The fact of sexual abuse of children by the teacher of the special school made a lot of noise. Do you think it was in children's interest?

Although this noise probably gave masochistic pleasure to some people, it made me sad. Everybody's attention was focused on the trial: what was the punishment for that perpetrator etc... everything for sensation. You may decide 6 or 16 years of imprisonment, what will change? For the life of abused child nothing is changed. For kids who stay in the same institution nothing is changed.

Who worked with the victim? Psychologist? Social worker? Was the child isolated from the place where the violence happened? Was there a change of the caregiver? To make it short, we rarely think about rehabilitation of the child. It was the worst idea to transfer the child from one institution to another. Do we want to say that the problem exists only in that particular institution and if we take a child from that institution, it will never happen again?

This is the first. The second, who said that the perpetrator acted alone? I do not believe it. The perpetrator achieves the agreement with the victim and with colleagues. This person didn't committed violence alone, I can say that for sure. Besides, if only one child's case was discovered, why the others remain in the same risky situation? After all, the institution is already risky.

If they just shacked that institution and tried to place the kids in fostered families, tried to find good solutions for that kids and tried to help them somehow. If they had this approach, the kids would not stay in that institution.

How many cases there should be for us to say the situation is bad? One life is very important, one child is very important. I do not think it is the situation that should be judged based on the statistical data.

What solution do you suggest?

We need system solutions. The system of relief in our country deals with the consequences. We are waiting for something to happen and then starting to work with a child. We do not have a preventive approach and even worse; we do not have a preventive mentality. We do not think that if we help a day before, the damage will be less. We support families very little, almost there is no support. Attention of the state, Diaspora, benefactors is directed to the institutions: orphanages, boarding schools etc.  

However there are families, which need professional aid instead of relatives' and benefactors' support.   

What is the role of the state in protection of child's rights in the family and when it can interfere?

Child's protection is in balance with the state and parents' rights. If everything is fine in the family, state does have anything to do there, if not, the state should use its tools and help, interfere, restrict through the school, kinder garden, medical institutions, board of trustees. 

We have witnessed painful cases. It may seem that we work for many years and should have been used to face those cases. However it is very difficult to see child's suffering and it is very painful to see that the child does not realize that he or she is suffering.

There are situations when for child's protection parent's rights should be limited because either a parent violates child's rights or the child is neglected by the parent to the extent that this indifference can have damaging effect.

Interview by Mary Alexanyan

Source: www.hra.am

Page of the "Children's support center" of the Fund of Armenian Relief in the addressbook of www.hra.am