Children in Post-Soviet Societies

10/04/2005

Children in Post-Soviet Societies

Never underestimate young children, for, if you do, you are bound to be surprised"
Selma Wasserman, Serious Players in the Primary Classroom

Eva Jespersen from the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre in Florence, Italy, made these observations on the status of childhoods after the fall of the Soviet empire in former soviet nations in Educating Children for Democracy (Summer/Fall 2005), the official journal of the International Step by Step Association:

"The period preceding the breakup of the Soviet Union was characterized by political and economic deficits, but a considerable degree of social protection; while the subsequent period has, for many countries, been one of righting those deficits but ignoring the changing demands on social developments – particularly services to promote and protect human rights of children…

Jespersen sites these examples of social developments in Central and Eastern Europe, the Baltic States, and the Caucasus:

• The number of children under age five fell by over one-third, from 35 million to 23 million.

• The share of children born out of wedlock increased by nearly one-third, from 17 to 28 percent.

• Marriage rates declined by one-third on average.

• The proportion of children dropped significantly in almost all countries immediately following the transition. The decline was most dramatic in Central Asia, the region where the number of children continued to rise and where more than half of all preschools closed during the 1990’s.

• In 9 out of the 14 countries in the region for which comparable data is available, nearly one-third of all children lived in poverty in 2002.

• Linked to negative and slow economic growth during much of the 1990s were insufficient levels of public resources for social services.

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