Introduction
We have been discuss to choose orphans for topic in panel discussion. The issues of orphan appear everywhere around the world. And it is not hot topic. However it will never be solved. Day by days orphans are the victim of thousands of problems when they do not cause by orphan. Orphans really need the care from society, government and so on.
Why we say that the life of orphan is not easy? Living in an orphanage means limited of love and no bonding with parents which are essential elements to a healthy development of a child. At the age of eighteen, the orphan has to leave the orphanage. Some orphans would not have any Identification card (IC) because some of the countries’ rule, if want to get IC, person needs to provide citizenship of one’s parents. But some children who have been abandoned dose not even know the parents.
Some of the orphans lost only one side whether mother or father. And some are lost both, but still they have the relative who can take care for. But the hardest life is usually goes to the orphan that do not know where they come from. Most probably, those orphans are the victim of people who evolve in social evils.
Orphans Future is not safe
Most of orphans get difficulties in finding success. There are some reasons that can support this statement. Such as the living condition of orphans, lack of loves so it causes emotional. And the most worried one is about HIV/ AIDS, drug abuse, and diseases.
First let us go through the condition living of the orphans. The condition living of orphan basically bases on the government or organization, where enough economy and care to support for orphan.
For example, in our panel discussion one of our group mate shared that in her country, orphan is got attention and care so much from the government, therefore, we can find that life of orphan is quite find.
In contrast, when listened to the other panelist from Indonesia. Orphan gets less care. And most of the orphanages are built by non-government organization.
Let me share the situation about other panelist which is from Vietnam because it make me more interest to share it. Vietnam is still a developing country with low level of economy; government really does not have enough money to satisfy all. But somehow the government has taken some action for that. In this case, we cannot blame government lacks of care, besides, the number of orphan quite large and really out of government controlled. According to ‘Research situation analysis Vietnam country brief ‘, the ratio type of organizations providing OVC (orphan and vulnerable children) service in Vietnam 2009, the government contribute a part for that, but it was less if compare to international.
Second, most of the children live in orphanage lack of loves. Lacking of love may cause to the children get king of the disease which is called autism. Autism is a kind of sickness which relates to a mental condition, present from early childhood, characterized by great difficulty in communicating and forming relationship (English-English- Vietnamese dictionary).
According to Drrogu in an article ‘They diagnoses children might mix the severely mentally retarded, autistic, and handicapped patients with the relatively normal child who is abandoned, with mild developmental delay or the child who required minor surgery that is unable to acquire the procedure in order to lead a normal and healthy life.’ ‘Unfortunately, once a child was placed in an orphanage, that label follows the child for years, especially in countries like communist Romania during the 1980s. These children were fated to remain there for a life without appropriate medical care or even the possibility of having a family to care for their needs’.
The most worried and complicated effect to the orphan is the issue about HIV/AIDS and drug abuse. The orphan live in an orphanage or unknown orphan is most probably getting these problems.
At the age of eighteen, the orphan has to live orphanage to give space for others are waiting for the place to stay. At this age, some children is known as still not mature yet and easy fallen into the darkness of life. There are many article, newspaper highly mention about this.
Especially the unknown orphans that are not under any care, they are easier get in to these kinds of issues. They lack of education or even some of them do not have much chance to experience what is class room. So their knowledge about the effect of these all kind of disease seems to be empty. In addition, children like to try something that they do not know, hence the ratio of unknown orphan get HIV or drug abuse is dramatically high.
The most pity one goes to the children who get HIV from the beginning of the life. Because of their parents’ mistake, then children have to face everything. Sometime people even ignore them because of HIV while it was their fault. Those children need to deal with sickness, mentally issues and etc., when their age is totally not suitable for suffering all those difficulties of life. They really need the voice help from society.
From what I state all above we can see how pity for the orphan, especially those children who live in some unethical orphanages. There is an increasing body of evidence that orphanages, especially large orphanages, are the worst possible care option for children. In large institutions all children, but particularly babies may not receive enough eye contact, physical contact, and stimulation to promote proper physical, social or cognitive development. In the worst cases, orphanages can be dangerous and unregulated places where children are subject to abuse and abandonment. This statement I took it from the website Wikipedia.
Base on the statistic I took from Skyward Journey, The estimated shows that there are between 143 million and 210 million orphans worldwide (recent UNICEFF report.) If we compare this result to the current population of United State (300 million) and Russia (141 million); you can imagine how large the rate of statistic shown.
From the same article also state that each day 38,493 orphans age out. Every 2.2 seconds another orphan ages out with no family to belong to and no place to call home. In Russia and the Ukraine, studies have shown that 10% – 15% of these children commit suicide before they reach age eighteen. These studies also show that 60% of the girls become prostitutes and 70% of the boys become hardened criminals. Another Russian study reported that of the 15,000 orphans aging out of state-run institutions every year, 10% committed suicide, 5,000 were unemployed, 6,000 were homeless and 3,000 were in prison within three years
Let’s change orphan future
However, we cannot state that all the orphans are not successes in their life. Sometimes the situation cause people become stronger. And, it bases on the ability of dealing, endurance of person.
Listen to a story of my beloved lecturer about his family I discover this. If I am not mistaken; my lecturer mother grown up as orphan, she was fostered by only her mom. By seeing her mom she became stronger and stronger, later on she has very succeed in her life, because of the condition, where she live in gave her stronger, guide her to find success. I really interesting listen to this and open for me new thought.
Besides that I also have a friend who just lost her father when she got a letter to enter a University. She has 1 younger sister is studying in primary school. Another elder brother was passed away before her father several months. Most of the income for family is from her father because her mother has mentally problem and not be able to work. After her father passed away, she still continued her study until now because she gets full scholarship enough to survive. For her mother and the smaller sister, they are now under care of her uncle and some relatives.
Beside the condition of family like that, she also faces many problems in studying. She failed many times just for English test. Maybe it cause by family problem. But I can see the strong in her. Her father is the most effectively person she said. Her father gives her strong to face everything in life. And now she is being fine in her study.
Even though life has much challenges. But if we strong enough to resist and overcome, success will not run away from us. Some on orphan under good care can also make them grow up positively. But it is just a very small number if we figure out. In my idea, it bases on the lucky factor if the child get their adopted parents treat them as the child they give birth.
That the only positive side we can see while a\we are talking about orphan life. They lose too much thing of life which they could have as normal human being. But because of unlucky or some other issues bring them to face to all these situations. The bad thing is that all the problems they are dealing are not their false at all. They just objectively become victim of society.
Conclusion
In a summary, we know life of orphans is not easy. We just imagine the life of poverty, life lack of loves so it cause into emotional issues, metal and physical issue. In the other hand their lives have to suffer to all the social evils and so on.
The worse thing that the orphans’ age is not the age for facing all these things; therefore they need so much care from community government and whoever possible to help. They are not able to solve the problems by themselves because they are just children. Open your mind and open you heart look into the world, if possible please take action to save innocent life.
References
orphanage . (n.d.). Retrieved 04 08, 2013, from From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphanage
drrogu. (2012, march 22). Institutional Autism, secondary to orphanage living conditions. Retrieved 04 05, 2013, from adoption doctors: http://www.adoptiondoctors.com/articles/institutional-autism-secondary-to-orphanage-living-conditions/
Vietnam research situation analysis on orphans and other vulnerable children country brief. (2009, August). Retrieved 04 08, 2013, from http://www.bu.edu/cghd/files/2009/12/Vietnam-Research-Situation-Analysis-Country-Brief.pdf
Name: Muhammad Alham Bin Abdul Rahman ID No: 209110242