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| 2 yaşındaki Natasha bir Yunan yetimhanesine annesi tarafından bırakıldı. |
Yunanistan ile ilgili birçok makro ekonomik veri, geleceğine
ilişkin rakamsal tahminler konuşulup duruyor. Peki Yunan halkı ne durumda?
Yunanistan gerçek bir çöküş içerisinde. Hem ekonomik hem sosyal olarak bunun en
son örneğini BBC Atina muhabiri yazdı. Yunanlı bazı aileler bakamadıkları için
artık en değerli varlıklarından,çocuklarından vazgeçmeye başladı. İşte gerçek
Yunan trajedisi:
YUNANİSTAN HABERLERİ
FITCH'den Yunanistan uyarısı
YUNANİSTAN HABERLERİ
FITCH'den Yunanistan uyarısı
Yunanistan krizi maddi kayıpları aştı ve ciddi
manevi kayıplara yol açıyor. Noel’e bir kaç hafta kala Atina’da bir yuva
hocası, çocuklardan birinin üzerinde “bugün kızımı almaya gelmeyeceğim, artık
ona bakabilecek maddi gücüm yok, lütfen benim yerime ona iyi bakın, üzgünüm,
annesi.” yazılı bir not buldu. Geçtiğimiz iki ay içerisinde bir rahip,
içlerinden birinin sadece bir kaç günlük bir bebek olduğu, dört çocuğun
kapısının önüne bırakıldığını söylüyor. Diğer bir uç örnek ise, kendi besin
eksikliğinden dolayı ikizlerine süt veremeyen anne. Yunanistan’da krizin
boyutunun ciddi seviyelere ulaşmasıyla, ebeveynler işsizlik ve düşük kazançtan
dolayı artık çocuklarının temel ihtiyaçlarını karşılayamayacak duruma geldi.
Çocuklarının bakım evlerinde daha iyi şartlar altında yaşayacaklarını düşünen
aileler, onları güvendikleri kurumlara bırakıyor.
Bu gibi örnekler Yunanistan gibi aile bağları
güçlü ve çocuklarına bakamamanın kabul edilemeyeceği bir ülke için gerçekten de
çok zor. Bunu yapmak zorunda kalan aileler ise kızgınlar ama kendilerini çaresiz
hissediyorlar. Kültürel olarak da inanılmaz büyük bir yük ve utancı omuzlarında
taşımak zorunda kalan aileler, mali durumları düzelince çocuklarını tekrardan
yanlarına alacaklarını, fakat şimdilik böyle bir bakımın onlar için daha iyi
olduğunu düşünüyorlar. Yardım kuruluşlarına göre, son bir yılda bir çok aile
çocukları için barınak, yemek ve para yardımı talebinde bulundu. Daha önceleri
çocuklara sadece ailelerin alkol ve uyuşturucu bağımlılığından dolayı sahip
çıkan kurumlar, son zamanlarda ekonomik faktörlerin en büyük rolü oynadıklarını
belirtiyor.
The Greek parents too poor to
care for their children
Greece's financial crisis has made some families so desperate they are
giving up the most precious thing of all - their children.
One morning a few weeks before Christmas a kindergarten teacher in Athens
found a note about one of her four-year-old pupils.
"I will not be coming to pick up Anna today because I cannot afford to
look after her," it read. "Please take good care of her. Sorry. Her
mother."
In the last two months Father Antonios, a young Orthodox priest who runs a
youth centre for the city's poor, has found four children on his doorstep -
including a baby just days old.
Another charity was approached by a couple whose twin babies were in
hospital being treated for malnutrition, because the mother herself was
malnourished and unable to breastfeed.
Cases like this are shocking a country where family ties are strong, and
failure to look after children is socially unacceptable - they feel to Greeks
like stories from the Third World, rather than their own capital city.
One of the children cared for by Father Antonios is Natasha, a bright
two-year-old brought to his centre by her mother a few weeks ago.
The woman said she was unemployed and homeless and needed help - but before
staff could offer her support she had vanished, leaving her daughter behind.
"Over the last year we have hundreds of cases of parents who want to
leave their children with us - they know us and trust us," Father Antonios
says.
"They say they do not have any money or shelter or food for their
kids, so they hope we might be able to provide them with what they need."
Requests of this kind were not unknown before the crisis - but Father
Antonios has never until now come across children being simply abandoned.
One woman driven by poverty to give up her child was Maria, a single mother
"Every night I cry alone at home, but what can I do? It hurt my heart,
but I didn't have a choice," she says.
She spent her days looking for work, sometimes well into the evening and
that often meant leaving eight-year-old Anastasia alone for hours at a time.
The two of them lived on food handouts from the church. Maria lost 25kg.
In the end she decided to put Anastasia into foster care with a charity
called SOS Children's Villages.
"I can suffer through it but why should she have to?" she asks.
She now has a job in a cafe, but makes just 20 euros (£16) a day. She sees
Anastasia about once a month, and hopes to take her back when her economic
situation improves - but when that might be she has no idea.
SOS Children's Villages' director of social work, Stergios Sifnyos, says
the charity is not accustomed to taking children from families for economic
reasons and does not want to.
"The relationship between Maria and Anastasia is very close. You can
say you cannot see any problem, [any reason] why this child has to be far away
from her mother," he says.
"But it's very difficult for her to feel comfortable to take back the
child when she is not sure she will [still] have a job the next days."
'Act of violence'
“Start Quote
The truth is that the biggest need any child has is to feel the love of its
parents”
Father AntoniosHead of
Kivotos youth centre
In the past when SOS Children's Villages took children into its care, the
cause was mostly drug and alcohol addiction in the family. Now the main factor
is poverty.
Another charity, The Smile of a Child, also focused in the past on cases
involving child abuse and neglect. It too is now catering for the destitute of
Athens.
Its chief psychologist Stefanos Alevizos, says that when a parent puts a
child into care, the child feels its entire foundations have been shaken.
"They experience the separation as an act of violence because they
cannot understand the reasons for it," he says.
But The Smile of a Child's Sofia Kouhi says the biggest tragedy, in her
eyes, is that those parents who ask for their kids to be taken into care may be
the ones who love their children the most.
"It is very sad to see the pain in their heart that they will leave
their children, but they know it is for the best, at least for this
period," she says.
Father Antonios disagrees.
He believes that no matter how poor parents may be, the child is always
better off with its family.
"These families will be judged for abandoning their children," he
says.
"We can provide a child with food and shelter, but the truth is that
the biggest need any child has is to feel the love of its parents."
The names of children in this report have been changed to protect their
identities.
