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Abandoned children scavenge for food in
cockroach-infested homes, while their parents binge on alcohol
SLAVIC GOSPEL ASSOCIATION SUPPORTS EFFORT TO AID UKRAINE'S '50,000
SOCIAL ORPHANS:' As many as 50,000 "social orphans" in Ukraine,
children who've been abandoned or severely neglected by their parents,
desperately need to know someone cares. Illinois-based Slavic Gospel Association
(SGA, www.sga.org) is
responding to the escalating crisis.
NEWS PROVIDED BY
Slavic Gospel Association (SGA)
Sept. 6, 2023
LOVES PARK, Ill., Sept. 6, 2023 /Christian
Newswire/ -- The war in Ukraine has caused a dramatic surge in the number of
"social orphans," according to a U.S.-based organization responding to an
escalating crisis of child abandonment.
Ukrainian church leaders estimate there are as many as 50,000 "hidden" social
orphans, children barely surviving under the radar who've been abandoned or
severely neglected by their parents due to the ravages of war and fueled by
addictions.
"There's a massive crisis of kids who've been either abandoned to live on their
own or live with parents who are almost constantly drunk or abusive," said Eric
Mock, senior vice president at Slavic Gospel Association (SGA,
www.sga.org). SGA partners with more than 800
evangelical churches across Ukraine to deliver aid and "share the hope of the
Gospel."
Uncovering Crisis of Neglect
Local church workers uncovered the extent of the crisis as they went
door-to-door delivering emergency food packages and sharing the Gospel with
families living on the frontline. Often, they find parents who've passed out
after a drunken binge while their hungry children sit in squalor.
It's estimated approximately 30% of neglected or abandoned children in Ukraine
are "true orphans" without a living parent, most of them in government-run
orphanages. The other 70% have at least one parent who's alive but they have to
essentially fend for themselves.
"We're seeing fathers being killed in the war and young widowed mothers sinking
into despair," Mock said. "They're hearing missiles rain down every night and
that generates tremendous fear and anxiety. They can't find a job because most
businesses have been wiped out, so they turn to alcohol to blot out their pain
and check out of life."
As a result, abandoned children as young as two or three years old scavenge for
food in appalling conditions.
Crawling with Cockroaches
"I visited a house, an absolute mess, and a small child walked in behind me,"
Mock said. "The kitchen countertop was covered with cockroaches. The child just
wiped all the roaches on the floor, filled a glass with dirty water and took a
drink. The pastor accompanying me said, 'The father is drunk and the mother is
never around. For them, this is just life.'"
At another home, a little boy was dirty and neglected, while his parents were
"oblivious and clearly drunk," Mock said. "Local church workers go back to visit
these homes day after day, sometimes taking the children back to their own homes
to clean them up and feed them."
Mock has visited numerous orphanages across Ukraine and Russia, but says he's
never seen anything like these conditions.
"In the orphanages, the children are fed and taken care of. They're considered
the 'lucky ones,'" he said. "But thousands of social orphans have nothing, and
no family who cares for them. They can't be adopted because they still have at
least one parent who's alive and hasn't given up their parental rights. That's
why the local churches play such a vital role."
Feeling 'Wanted' for First Time
SGA's emergency food deliveries and
Orphans Reborn outreach support local church efforts to show orphans and
abandoned children that "they're loved by God and loved by the church family."
"For many of them, it's the first time in their lives they've ever felt wanted
or loved, and the first time they've heard the Gospel," SGA president Michael
Johnson said.
Since the war began, SGA and its local church partners have provided food
packages to approximately 300,000 families in Ukraine, enough for roughly 16
million meals, and local church workers have shared the Gospel with an estimated
500,000 people.
Founded in 1934, Slavic Gospel Association (SGA,
www.sga.org) helps "forgotten"
orphans, widows and families in Ukraine, Russia, the former Soviet countries of
Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Russian-speaking immigrants in Israel – caring
for their physical needs and sharing the life-transforming Gospel. SGA supports
an extensive grassroots network of local evangelical missionary pastors and
churches in cities and rural villages across this vast region.
SOURCE Slavic Gospel Association (SGA)
CONTACT: Nicole Ponder, 321-586-2332,
nponder@inchristcommunications.com