As the Greek government prepares new austerity packages demanded by
EU creditors, Greece sees its younger generation feel the sting of
economic upheaval. Parents are being increasingly forced to abandon
their children, unable to support them.
Following a meeting this week, the Troika – the European Central
Bank (ECB), European Commission (EC) and International Monetary Fund –
is upping the pressure on Greece’s coalition government to introduce
more cuts to qualify for another bailout.
Recent cuts to social
benefits and state institutions have sparked public outrage and led to
mass protests over worsening situation in the country. The new budget
plans will see 7 billion euro (US$9 billion) worth of cuts in 2013,
largely targeting public employees’ wage packets and public services.
The
austerity itself is biting increasingly hard, with increasing numbers
of children being offloaded by parents into orphanages.
“During
the past two years we have seen a large rise in the number of children
coming to us because their families can't support them. As taxes and
prices have risen, things like food, clothing, schooling and housing
have become too expensive,” Akis Drepanidis, director of SOS
Children's Village in Plagiari told RT. He said that there has been a 70
per cent increase for help in 2012.
SOS says that during 2011 it
received between 700 and 800 requests for families in need of help and
almost 100 per cent of them were due to economic plight, where before
the principal cause for referral was abuse.
Drepanidis described
how the orphanages were also being forces to make cut-backs because of
the influx of referrals and the drop in donations.
“People
give what they can, but that is getting less and less. Also we are taxed
on what we receive, making it more of a burden to buy things we need
like fuel for heating,” he told RT.
‘Never to be reunited’
A
Greek mother who was forced to give up her daughter when she was laid
off spoke to RT about the emotional upheaval of abandoning her child.
“It was an awful decision to have to make, but what could I do? There was no money and no work,” she said. The mother told RT that it was unlikely that they would ever be united again as a family, because “things are going from bad to worse here, it could be 10 years before Greece is back on its feet.”
She currently sees her daughter only once a month in the SOS orphanage where she is housed.
The
social footprint of austerity has been felt throughout Greek society
with communal soup kitchens now providing 8,000 people a day with meals
in Athens and doctors patients increasingly expected to finance
consultations and medication.
The Hellenic Statistical Authority
put unemployment in the first quarter of the year at over 22 per cent
and climbing, and a recession of 3.8 per cent is predicted for 2013,
meaning the Greek economy will be one quarter of its size at the
beginning of the crisis six years ago.
The austerity measures
already taken by the Greek government have thus far had no effect on the
size of public debt. The Greek Ministry of Finance has predicted that
national debt will rise to 179.3 percent of GDP as the government work
to implement a new set of cuts.
Greece began receiving bailouts in
May 2010 and has so far been unable to pull itself out of the economic
quagmire, even with billions of euro of EU funds. In September the Greek
government applied to the EU for a two-year extension on the bailout
program, equating to 13.5 billion euro ($16 billion).
