Britannia Radio

Greek crisis ups abandoned kids

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/218213.html

Wed Dec 28, 2011 6:14PM GMT

A child makes his way after receiving food from the Orthodox Church of Greece in Athens December 22, 2011.

Economic crisis has risen to new heights in Greece, as some parents are now forced to give up their children and put them in foster care because of poverty.

The effects of the austerity measures approved by the IMF and the EU are becoming more tragic in Greece as there has been an increase in the number of newborn babies dumped outside clinics, and in that of children being offloaded on charities and put in foster care.

"The crisis had killed us. I am ashamed to say but it had got to the point where I couldn't even afford the EUR 2 needed to buy bread," Dimitris Gasparinatos, Greek citizen who put in an official request for three of his boys and one of his daughters to be taken into care, said.

"We didn't want to break up the family but we did think it would be easier for them if four of my children were sent to an institution for maybe two or three years," he added.

Greeks are preparing to endure a fifth consecutive year of recession, while the debt crisis widens, cuts take their toll, poverty deepens and unemployment climbs.

Poverty has forced 500 Greek families to ask for placing their children in homes run by charity SOS villages, according to the leading Greek daily Kathimerini.

"People are going hungry, families are breaking up, instances are mounting of mothers and fathers no longer being able to bring up their own kids," General Secretary of the civil servants' union ADEDY, Ilias Ilioupolis said.

Meanwhile, officials insist that the belt-tightening and structural reforms under way will eventually change the EU's most uncompetitive economy for the better.

Greece's public debt runs at some 162 percent of its GDP. The country's debt crisis has come to pose a threat to the entire eurozone.

The European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have provided Athens with two rescue packages in return for specific austerity measures, which include the cutting of public sector salaries and pensions, increasing taxes, and overhauling the pension system.