Victor Yushchenko is now chairing a meeting aimed at
improving child protection in Ukraine, president's press office reported. Its participants – ministers, governors,
mayors and social workers – are expected to sum up results of his November 2005
decree to declare 2006 a year for the protection of children’s rights.
In his speech to open the meeting, the President said there had
been “radical” positive changes in the past two years in how children in Ukraine
live. He said our society was no longer indifferent to orphans, children with
particular needs or those abandoned by their parents. He added that his
2006-2010 program to reduce homelessness among children was being carried out
throughout Ukraine. Thus the number of adopted children grew by 300% last year
and the number of family orphanages by 40%, he said. Mr. Yushchenko is also
happy that more babies had been born in 2006 than in 2005.
The President, however, said they “must not stop at what has
been achieved.” He complained that the government and other social institutions
failed to protect children and their rights effectively.
“Nothing has been done in every fifth region to increase the
number of children's family homes,” he said, adding that their creation was one
of the objectives of the country’s social policy. “I am sure that those in
charge of this area work inefficiently and so should resign because they cannot
appreciate the importance of the problem.”
Mr. Yushchenko also said 64% of Ukrainian families raising more
than three children lived in poverty. He added that Ukraine still had relatively
high infant mortality (11.5%) and said it was vital to reform the national
healthcare system to resolve the problem.
The President called on those present to be “very serious about
decisions they are going to make during their meeting today” and asked them to
cooperate to fulfill them.
Deputy Prime Minister Dmytro Tabachnyk, Education Minister
Stanislav Nikolayenko, Youth and Sports Minister Viktor Korzh, Deputy
Secretariat Chief of Staff Viktor Bondar, Zhytomyr Governor Yuriy Pavlenko and
Zhytomyr Mayor Vira Sheludchenko are present at the meeting.
Before it, Victor Yushchenko viewed an exhibition of social
advertisements and scientific literature.
His priorities for 2007 include:
- passing and enforcing a law on the fulfillment of the UN Convention on
the Rights of the Child;
- promoting and encouraging adoption;
- introducing financial aid mechanisms to support children;
- eradicating homelessness among children;
-
reforming the system of orphanages and children’s homes.
