HOW A FAMILY WITH FIVE YOUNG CHILDREN IS TREATED IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY
HETQ
2009/04/06 | 19:00
Society
"I have three future soldier-boys in my family. When my sons ask
me what a motherland means, I’ll tell them that the motherland is
the hungry life they are living, as well as the indifference and
unwillingness of your country’s officials to render us a helping hand,"
mother of five children Gayane Rstakyan said in the interview to Hetq.
It’s already 12 year that this family lives in a rented
apartment. According to Mrs. Gayane, they frequently turned for
assistance to various officials, including Serge Sargsyan, when he
was a PM, as well as to a dozen of deputies. But every time their
letters were sent back to Armavir’s Mayor’s Office. The family was
told at the Armavir’s Mayor’s Office that they shouldn’t expect any
assistance from them, as they have no financial sources.
"The state doesn’t support us. We don’t even get any benefits. My
husband works at ArmenTel and gets 57 thousand drams of monthly
salary. They tell me at the Social Security Department that this sum
is quite enough for us and we do not qualify for benefits. I wander
who qualifies for getting benefits, if our family doesn’t? When
people learn that we don’t get any allowances they get astonished
in what kind of a country we live in. All of my five children are
schoolchildren. Since September we owe money to the stores for the
school uniforms. If I count that all, our debt will make about $1000,"
Mrs. Gayane said.
The mother of the family has turned to the Armavir Social Security
Department for getting benefits for many times. "My husband already
feels shame to go there again. He says it seems we are begging for
living. It is quite hard to go to a state body, but if we lived in a
proper country, why would we go there? They would come instead and say
that the state wants to support us, as we are large family with five
children. I wish they visited us just like you did. They would come,
knock at our door and inquire how we live," Gayane Rstakyan said.
This 7 member family doesn’t even posses any property. They don’t
have even the first-necessity things and they have to use the things
belonging to the owners of the apartment they rent.
They explained our correspondent at the Labour and Social Security
Ministry’s Department of Social assistance that this family hadn’t
been registered in the family allowance system since the January of
2008. According to the department’s officials, they would get their
benefits out-of-turn. They said that Mrs. Gayane should go and register
her family in the department’s lists.
"The Ofices of Armeavir’s Social Assistance Department are in the
building of the Armavir’s Local Administration(Marzpetaran). Their
officials would never offend the citizens. Anyway, if such cases
of non-respectful attitude occur, they should complain to Armavir’s
Local Administration," one of the department’s officials advised.
"The owners of the apartment are in Russia now and they have already
warned us that soon they are going to return and we should leave
the apartment. We have changed already 5 apartments in 12 years, and
we don’t know where to go. I didn’t have my children especially for
getting financial assistance from the state. But we had never been
supported by the state. We need their assistance to at least stand
firm on our feet. We have friends in France and they tell us that
the state pays for each child such a sum of money that the parents
can do without even working. In our country, on the contrary, they
don’t do a thing to support large families," Mrs. Gayane said.
Gayane wants to have some more children. Both her and her husband
love children so much, but they don’t have that opportunity.
"I have three boys and in several years they will join the army. I
bring them up in difficulties, make them good people, then somebody
who never helped us will come and take them away from us. Don’t
misunderstand me, please, I say all this with pain, but I really feel
no obligations to my country," said offended Mrs. Gayane.
On the day of our visit, David, 12, the elder son of the family,
didn’t have a copy book to do his homework. They had to go to one of
the stores and ask the employee to give them a copy book on credit
until their father gets the salary. But father’s salary is completely
spent of the day he gets that. They try to pay their old debts. On
the next day they make new debts for buying bread and food. When the
mother was telling about their hardship, the children had to leave
the room feeling shame. We could hardly persuade them to at least
be photographed.