Lithuania’s identity crisis and child rights

  • 2012-02-15
  • Interview by Linas Jegelevicius

Fifty-four-year old Dainius Puras, a child psychiatrist, is undoubtedly the most well-known Lithuanian expert in the field. His professional involvement goes beyond his practice, into political and public activities regarding family issues. With an MD degree, he teaches a course on psychiatry in public health to students at Vilnius University’s Medicine Faculty and the Institute of International relations and Political Sciences. Among his current most prominent assignments is the chairmanship of the Board of Lithuania’s Human Rights Monitoring Institute and an honorary chairmanship at Viltis, an association for the care of mentally impaired people. In 2007, in election of Children Rights Committee members at the United Nations in New York, he was selected as a expert member of the Committee. He devotes a good deal of his time to this.
Puras’ down-to-earth personality along with his professional ability to apply his profound, widely-acclaimed expertise as a scholar to daily psychiatric practices has made him a distinguished person in the Lithuanian landscape. Puras sat down to speak with The Baltic Times about his work.

A couple years ago, I stumbled upon mind-blowing statistics referring to a highly destructive Lithuanian behavior, putting us, within the EU, on the very top in the rate of suicides, alcohol-related deaths and psychiatric deviances, which, ultimately, ranked us among the least happy nations in Europe. Does this surprise you? Did the statistics change over several years?
A few things should be taken into consideration here. Lithuania is a country which is still in a bumpy societal transition. It is one of the reasons why, to many indicators, we are deemed a destructive nation.
On the surface, these high numbers of premature deaths rise from so-called external causes, including continuing epidemics of suicide. Deeper, under this “tip of iceberg,” many other symptoms indicate an unhealthy response to the changes we are through in the transition, and to the heavy societal distress. Therefore, it is not surprising that a high percentage of Lithuanian children report being unhappy. More than in most EU countries.
Why is it so?  First, the level of tolerance of population to most the so-called vulnerable groups is very low, which, again, indicates that serious problems persist on the side of the so-called “normal society.”  

What is our government’s response to these issues?
Disappointingly, response of all governments to the prolonged societal crisis has been very superficial and immature so far. Unfortunately, even on a high level, there is a prevailing misconception that economic development we expect ahead will solve all the societal problems per se, and that the only problem in the current societal problems is the economic crisis.
To go further, I do not see a readiness in the political elite – either on the right or on left side – to reflect more deeply on what is going on with social capital, relations between citizens, etc. The governmental response of previous and the incumbent government have been reactive, not proactive. It has not tackled the level of human relations and social capital. For example, the only real investment in attempts to reduce the epidemics of suicide is reimbursement of costs of modern antidepressants. Needless to say, this kind of an attempt to medicalize the severe problem is too primitive and too one-sided in the context of such a public health crisis.

Did you ever think of the historical and cultural factors that have contributed most to the destructiveness? How different are Latvians and Estonians in that sense?
It is always risky to make comparisons among countries and nations. Still, as far as I know other two Baltic countries, I should say that Latvia is in the middle not only geographically, but also in the way of managing the transition I mentioned earlier. Despite the difficulties of the process, when it comes to the issue of destructive behavior, Estonia is an obvious winner as it has accepted the changes of the transition as an opportunity, and, therefore, it is moving ahead. Not only economically, but, what  seems to me more important, in a calm and effective  “self-cure“ of  the societal “fabric”, which has been quite damaged in the 20th century.
Lithuania is fixated on other things. Instead of using this unique opportunity to liberate human relations from the totalitarian effects, it often steps backwards, and the regress may often be noticed with nostalgia about the “old good times,” whether those stretching back into the Soviet era, or the pre-war independence years, or even from the times of Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
This problem of missed opportunity may be linked with the obvious identity crisis. Differently from Estonia, Lithuania demonstrates, even on an official political level, its heavy identity crisis. In some areas, like human and children rights, Lithuania conflicts with the international standards, emphasizing superiority and importance of national values over universal human rights and freedoms.

What catches your attention when it comes to children issues in Lithuania? Some people defending the current governmental policies say that they do not exist. Do you agree?
One good piece of news about rights of children and their well-being is that this topic is becoming important in the public discourse.
The sad news is that the whole region of Eastern and Central Europe is only starting to discover the modern concept of child’s rights. And, in that context, I would not like to single out Lithuania too much.
The difference may only be that some countries are patiently learning and moving ahead in the field, while other countries try to oppose the modern principles and may lose precious time when they regress to culture of violence, or rely on a concept of charity only.
During the last several years, Lithuania’s biggest problem has been the moralistic concept that dominated the broad area of family and childhood policies in the country. The rhetoric, as a rule, was opposed the values of a liberal democracy. Conservative politicians have blocked, for example, the law on banning corporal punishment for children, instead exerting their efforts mainly on description of what family is. It was concluded that only a married couple can be considered a family, while single parents with children are not, according to this concept. Even though the concept contradicts to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and many other important international treaties, as well as Lithuanian Constitution, which was ruled by the Lithuanian Constitutional Court, there were not so many opponents to the family description locally.

Why so?
Just for two prevailing reasons: those who oppose the Conservative-party prepared conception are labeled as being “against family,” or “supporting gay marriage,” both of which are still seen by many as a sacrilegious thing.
In fact, the real discourse about the substance of child rights and child protection is only starting. All groups of society have to be educated about children rights after many decades of the Soviet-type brain-washing, which boiled down to this: if there any problems in a family, the best way to protect [a child] is to place him/her into a foster care institution.
Here we come to an important paradox, which is evident currently in Lithuania. When politicians promote child rights and stress family importance, the results appear to be just opposite to the rhetoric. Despite four years of existence of the controversial family policy concept, institutionalization of children remains high in Lithuania. This would have not happened if all governments had preferred families, not the foster care institutions, as the place for children to live. Unfortunately, despite repeating its support for families as the highest priority, Lithuanian politicians continue strengthening the system of child care, which is heavily dependent on social exclusion and institutionalization.

Were there any opportunities to address the issues before?
Over the years, since Lithuania regained its independence, there have been many opportunities to develop an effective child protection system and to invest into children, families and communities in the way it is recommended by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and many international organizations. However, Lithuania has gone other way, which could be summarized this way: trying to re-discover the bicycle.
By the way, Lithuania’s start was very good. By the middle of the 1990s, services in the field of child mental health services, as well as services for children with disabilities and family support services had been developed, and Lithuania was then a recognized regional leader in this area. However, around the turn of centuries, around the year of 2000, stagnation started, which was later followed by regress in the field.
The saddest thing is that the EU accession was followed by lack of political will to develop a modern system of services for families and children in risk. And what happened later and what is happening now, we see that EU structural funds are being effectively invested in renovation of large residential foster care establishments, for both children and adults.

Many old-fashioned parents and educators may object to you that today focus is only on rights of the child, while his or her duties are being forgotten.  How would you respond to this? Is corporal punishment justifiable in some cases? Is it normal that teachers today risk losing their job for twisting a disobedient pupil’s ear?
The issue of corporal punishment is very important. When we started this debate in Lithuania, we realized that most of population, including parents, politicians, etc., have no idea which practical methods are child-friendly, and at the same time do not strip of dignity of child. Parents, teachers, politicians tend to think that those who bring the idea of respecting rights of children, are supporting anarchy. And if corporal punishment and other repressive ways of disciplining children are not allowed, then the children will be out of control. This is a huge misunderstanding, and we all need to work a lot to fill this huge gap to make adults realize that there are many effective non-violent ways of managing behavior problems of children, even troubled children.
As for the question part on duties, sure, adults have to let know children their rights first, and only then the rights will come.
The main “frontline“ in all post-communist countries is whether they, after many decades of indoctrination that civil rights and freedoms are not important issues, will accept civil rights of each individual, starting from a newborn.
 In this context, the decisive point seems to me whether general public and politicians move from culture of violence, stigma and intolerance to the culture of respect and tolerance. A society which tries to “protect“ itself and its children employing stigmatizing, xenophobic and homophobic attitudes, ends in a self-destructive vicious cycle.

Are you optimistic that the situation in child right policies will improve in the country any time soon?
 I am optimistic that, in a long run, Lithuania will use this unique opportunity to develop a modern society based on the respect of the human rights of each individual, and not on a selective set of some rights of some individuals. Those who are not happy today with the rules of liberal democracy should understand that we only have started to exercise democracy and that ignoring it would mean regress to a dangerous antidemocratic way of governance. As for children, I think that this generation of children is the happiest in the history of Lithuania, as they have all opportunities to live in freedom. As adults, we should only assist them in a wise way to learn how to exercise freedom and how to manage human relations with dignity and respect. But, as a first step, we need to start to respect our children, only then may we expect that they will grow up as independent and responsible citizens.