Let me introduce to you Vika and Renat.
Vika came to live with us in September last year. She was introduced to us by the Kids Save Organisation who also work in Sakhalin, and often bring girls to us when they have nowhere else to go.
When Vika came to us she was eight months pregnant and just before we left for Australia for our rest she gave birth to the most beautiful baby boy Renat. A friend and midwife “Cinty”, from the International village Zima, was able to go with her and support her for the delivery, and continued to check on her and support her while we were away.
Out of all the young girls we have worked with I have never met a more determined young woman! She is brave, intelligent and is a wonderful mother!!!
Her story though is sad yet encouraging, because she has fallen through the cracks of the system and is not a true orphan, (but will be soon, as the courts are in the process of her becoming a ward of the state) yet with sheer determination battled for her rights and a better life.
Vika was born in the North of Sakhalin in Alexandra Sakhalinskaya, on the 15th March 1994. (She will be 18 in March)
The first 2 years of her life she lived with her mother and father, she has some memories of them fighting and drinking, when she was two they divorced.
From there her mother and her moved from place to place, first with an aunt for a year, then different friends of her mum’s. When she was three her mother remarried but her stepfathers mother was against them, and would not allow them in her flat. So they continued living with friends, living in dormitories and renting a string of flats that they always had to leave because of quarrelling with neighbours and landlords and drinking excessively often leading to her mother and step father hitting her.
Later when resources ran out, they moved in with the stepfather’s mother. Things started to settle down for a little while she started school, and her mother and stepfather got jobs. But her step mother never approved of them and didn’t want them there, refusing to give them food or let her and her mother back into the flat when they returned from work or school until the stepfather got home after 8pm even in the middle of winter when temperatures were below -20.
After a couple of years her parents brought a flat in a little village a couple of hours out of the city. The flat was small dirty and had no heating. Here her mother and stepfather drank all of the time. Her mother and stepfather fought all of the time. During this time her mother stopped coping so well and if he stepfather was asleep then her mother would take her anger and frustration out on her sometimes hitting her.
Eventually her mother and father lost their jobs again. During this time her real father began sending maintenance money owed and her mother and stepfather would drink all the money. When he sent money for her 13th birthday they celebrated for 2 weeks!
Around this time, she started leaving as much as possible she had an older friend who was 18 years old, and she spent as much time as possible with her often not returning for days, or weeks before her mother might come looking for her.
When she was at home she would look for her parents money while they were sleeping and hide it so there would be money for food and they didn’t drink it, but they always found out and hit her till she gave it back.
Around her 14th birthday, they needed to sell the flat and moved back to her step grandmothers again. Here she was not allowed to shower or wash, eat the food, use the phone or even turn on the lights without being yelled out by her strep grandma, demanding she pay for it despite not having any money.
Any money her step father brought in (usually from selling work equipment) was drank leaving no money for food and she was always hungry. Her parents often started leaving her for weeks at a time with the grandmother knowing she would not feed her or provide for.
After one of the trips her step father returned without her mother, saying they had fought and she had slammed the door and walked off. She did not hear from her mother for over 3 months. During this time she found her step father leering at her when she was showering, and another time he came in naked to use the toilet while she was showering and she fought him out with a knife.
The room where the three of them had been living in the grandmothers house stunk so bad from the cigarettes, vomit and alcohol was normal to her until a friend pointed it out to her and told her she smelt too. So when Vika turned 16 years old she moved out with the friend. She took work where ever she could in bars, selling BBQ’s in the park and petrol stations.
One of the bosses said he had a flat and he told her if she looked after his cat and watered his plants she could live there, but eventually he sold the flat and she was forced to move back to the stepfather and his mother. She had no bed and her options were to sleep on the floor or with her stepfather and she chose the floor. Often she would wake up cold and she would find the blanket removed from her and her step father pulling her clothes up to look at her. After 2 months of pushing him away scared to sleep she left again when he gave her the final alternate to sleep with him or leave.
Around that time, she met Renat’s father at her work and he offered her to live with him. Renat’s father was a lot older! After a few months Vika became pregnant and he tried to force her to abort saying it wasn’t his. Shortly after he said he was having problems and asked her to move out. It turned out that he was in legal trouble and now is sitting long term in prison. While at the court hearing she learned that he was already married with other children.
From April 2011 Vika lived with her Aunt. She managed to hide the pregnancy until she was about 5 months pregnant. But when her Aunt found out she tried to force her into abortion, but Vika again refused saying she could feel her baby moving and new it was alive and was keeping it. When she was 7 months pregnant, she was put ion hospital with anemia for about 3 weeks. Her Aunt gave her a final altermation to get rid of it or not come home so she contacted the Kids Save organisation, who then contacted House of Grace and Hope to see if Vika could live with us.
On the 4th October 2011 Vika gave birth to Renat. She is an excellent mother and as a result she has a very contented little boy who goo’s and ga’s and smiles at anyone that says hello.
Since giving birth Vika has begun to sit some of her year 9 exams and hope to complete them all this year. Then she would like to go to night school and complete school till the 11th grade.(The final year in Russian school) For a profession she hasn’t fully decided, she like the thought of something medical like doctor or dentist but has also thought about design.
I asked her to tell us:
What is the worst thing about living at HGH? “ being a lot of people in a small space.”
What is the best thing about living at HGH? “ Having help and not being alone.”
Where would she be if she wasn’t living here? “I don’t know, a cemetery! But for sure I would have had to put Renat up for adoption.”
What is the best thing about being a mum? “Being a mum!”
What is the Hardest thing about being a mum? “Not getting enough sleep.”
Describe Renat for us… Vika laughed “he’s a hamster! He is a good baby of course, he is peaceful, has my character but a bit of an attitude.”
What is your dream for the future? “ family, house, husband and more children.”
What do you want other people to know about you? “I am not married.”
