The Yeghiazaryan brothers, 14 year-old Gevorg, 12 year-old Rudik, and 10 year-old Vardan, have been absent from school for 4-5 months over the last year.

The first two used to attend Gyumri’s Boarding School #1, but Principal Ginoush Zatikyan says the boys haven’t been back since the December holidays.

“They came to pick up their holiday presents but that was the last we saw them. We visited their house a couple of times and the father promised to send them back to the school the very next day. It never happened,” says Zatikyan.

The 8 member family lives in a one room apartment on Teryan Street. When I asked for directions, people told me “to follow the awful smell”.

I understood what they meant when I reached the entrance to the building. The unmistakable stench of urine wafted down the hallway like a homing beacon.

When I finally reached the apartment, the entire family was at home. Except for the two oldest, the other 4 boys seemed to relieve themselves on the spot, in their clothes.

The parents, 45 year-old Garnik and 37 year-old Armineh, have their hands full raising all six sons on the monthly 57,000 AMD allowance they receive and the father’s occasional odd jobs.

8 year-old Samvelik, who has never gone to school, does not speak. The parents told me the boy has an illness and that they don’t have the money for a Yerevan specialist. They don’t know what the boy suffers from.

While the parents claim they don’t receive charitable assistance, the foreign writing on the shirts worn by the boys suggests the clothing was donated.

Garnik and Armineh say the boys don’t attend school regularly due to a lack of money. But the oldest boys were in a boarding school where their room and board were taken care of. The public school is also in walking distance so there’s no transportation costs involved.

Lusineh Ginosyan, who heads the Division of Family, Children’s, Women’s and Rights at the Regional Administration, assured me that the family is included in all the assistance programs now available.

“They aren’t bad kids. We will try to work with the parents,” says Principal Zatikyan. “We have to convince them as to the importance of the children getting a primary education. In the beginning, the kids would never show up. We’ve made some progress but not enough.”

Lusineh Ginosyan says they are limited as to what they can do to get the parents to send their children to school – administrative sanctions followed by criminal charges.

Ginosyan says that if both, or even one, of the parents is mentally challenged, their social work becomes all the more difficult.

“Overseas, the children of such parents would be taken and placed in the foster care system. Armenia has no such mechanisms.”

Principal Zatikyan says the boys didn’t even know how to hold a fork when they first came to the boarding school.

“The first thing is to get them under a shower and change their clothes. They live in pretty unsanitary conditions at home. The mother usually doesn’t monitor their behaviour and the father isn’t always sober.

The boys have been attending Zatikyan’s boarding school for the past two years. The principal points to some small but noteworthy progress along the way.

“Now, they recognize the letters of the alphabet and some of the multiplication tables. But we never know if the boys will return to the school or not.”

Principal Zatikyan laments that even the intervention of the police hasn’t worked.

“We even sent the school’s social workers to the house to bring the boys back. That was some circus. The neighbours crowded around the entrance to the building and told our people to get lost. They told us, ‘The boys want to stay home, so let them.’ These are the kinds of problems we have to put up with.”