Primary school years
Dimitri is an eight year old boy with cerebral palsy. He lives his life in a wheelchair and is absent from school on most days, often watching other children from his window on their way to school. Like Dimitri, 10,722 children with disabilities in Georgia are kept home or in specialised institutions. The stigma of disability in Georgia remains high, resulting in isolation and neglect of disabled children, stripping them of their basic rights, namely access to an equal education. With less than favorable conditions, access to a quality education remains an issue for many children in Georgia. Traditionally, Georgian families have prioritised their children’s education, regardless of gender. Correspondingly, Georgia provides a relative universal education for its children. However, the quality of education continues to suffer from the country’s economic crisis and from low expenditures on education. Two-thirds of Georgia’s children are deprived of their basic right to a quality education as a result of poor physical conditions of schools and low salaries and motivation of teachers, as well as limited access to textbooks and other materials. Residential care remains the primary response to poverty, family distress, and disability, all of which reflect the absence of social safety nets. There are over 5,000 children in various state or private institutions—87 per cent of these children have at least one parent. Obligated to reside in shabby and crumbing buildings without appropriate upkeep services, institutionalised children live in alarmingly unfavorable conditions and are moreover, deprived of their basic right to have a family. There are an estimated 2,500 children working in the streets, some of whom sleep on the street. Due to a lack of alternatives, imprisonment is still perceived as the only recourse of many judges, most of whom have no special training for cases involving minors. Nearly 45,000 children are IDPs or refugees whose families have fled conflicts, many of whom reside in dilapidated public buildings and suffer from disproportionately high incidences of health problems. The network of social infrastructure to protect children has deteriorated significantly with qualified social workers in short supply; law enforcement officials are inadequately motivated to intervene where needed and when necessary to protect children. The failure to meet the rights and special protection of children remains nation-wide and is perpetuated by insufficient funding of state institutions, policies that fail to encourage alternatives to institutionalisation, and legislative gaps.
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