Situation in Arstotzka deteriorates. 9 out of 10 live under poverty line.

[President Costava]

GRESTIN CITY - The situation in Arstotzka is deteriorating. Corruption and organized crime is plunging the country and its people to unprecedented levels of poverty and decay. There is no work and no money. Corrupted bureaucrats pull out all of the last juices from the people. The official rate of unemployment is at 40%, but unofficial data is magnitudes higher, as high as 70%.

 

Last morning a kindergarten teacher in Grestin found a note about one of her four-year-old pupils. "I will not be coming to pick up Boris today because I cannot afford to look after him," it read. "Please take good care of him. Sorry. his mother."

 

In the last two months Father Konstantin, a young Orthodox priest who runs a youth centre for the city's poor, has found four children on his doorstep - including a baby just days old. Another charity was approached by a couple whose twin babies were in hospital being treated for malnutrition, because the mother herself was malnourished and unable to breastfeed.

 

Cases like this are shocking a country where family ties are strong, and failure to look after children is socially unacceptable - and it's not happening in the countryside or in a war torn region, but in their capital city. One of the children cared for by Father Konstantin is Natasha, a bright two-year-old brought to his centre by her mother a few days ago.

 

The woman said she was unemployed and homeless and needed help - but before staff could offer her support she had vanished, leaving her daughter behind. "We have hundreds of cases of parents who want to leave their children with us - they know us and trust us," Father Konstantin says. "They say they do not have any money or shelter or food for their kids, so they hope we might be able to provide them with what they need."

 

Most of Arstotzkans, even those who have higher education and qualifications are forced to perform "dirty work" as underpaid carpenters, laying the tile, etc. However, even to find this work in Arstotzka today is almost impossible. Arstotzka's poverty and unemployment have made some families so desperate they are giving up the most precious thing of all - their children. The People's Assembly is currently debating an emergency plan to assist the population.