Kyrgyz Children's Homes Struggle to Find Adoptive Parents

Most of the newborn babies admitted to the children’s home in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek have health problems so serious that would-be adoptive parents are reluctant to take them on.

Gulja Nashimova, the doctor at one children’s home in the capital Bishkek, said, “Eighty per cent of the children we admit are sick…. 90 per cent of those have neurological disorders, in second place are those with congenital heart problems, and third are children with restricted development.” The doctor noted that many of the problems arose from inherited diseases like syphilis.

Other reports in this package looked at the limited work opportunities available to disabled people, and conditions in a village near Bishkek where there is no electricity or running water and schooling is poor.

The audio programme, in Russian and Kyrgyz, went out on national radio stations in Kyrgyzstan, as part of IWPR project work funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.