Orphan Facts and Statistics
About 15,000 children leave Russian orphanages each year, once they are 16 to 18 years old.
Of these, 5,000 are unemployed, some 6,000 are homeless, around 3,000 resort to crime,
approximately 1,500 commit suicide, and roughly half the girls are forced into prostitution.
From The CoMission for Children at Risk, 2002.
There were over 700,000 orphans in Russia in 2000. After leaving their orphanages:
50% - fall into a high-risk category
40% - become drug users
40% - commit crimes
10% - commit suicide
From Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation, 2000.
Over fourty million children in the former Soviet Union are living in "genuine poverty".
From European Children's Trust, 2000.
Orphans in Russia - of whom 95 percent still have a living parent - are exposed to shocking levels
of cruelty and neglect. Infants classified as disabled are segregated into "lying-down" rooms,
where they are changed and fed but are bereft of stimulation and lacking in medical care.
Of a total of more than 600,000 children classified as being "without parental care",
as many as one-third reside in institutions, while the rest are placed with a variety of guardians.
Thousands more are temporarily quartered in various public shelters and institutions under police
jurisdiction simply waiting for an available space in an orphanage.
Thousands of children are abandoned to the state at a rate of 113,000 a year for the past two
years, up dramatically from 67,286 in 1992. The evidence gathered reveals several systematic
disadvantages imposed on young Russian orphans, which violate their fundamental rights to
survival and development, and place them in a underclass.
From Human Rights Watch, 1998.