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350,000 'Orphaned' Children have Parents
Over 350,000 children in Romania have one parent working abroad. Of these, 126,000 have lost both of their parents to the lure of foreign work and are being cared for by grandparents, or are even in the care of the social protection system. The latest official statistics from the Office for Work Abroad said that in June 2008 there were around 100,000 such cases. The National Authority for Children solicited the help of the MEC in collecting the information through the direct involvement of teachers.
The main problems faced by these children are lack of supervision, emotional difficulties and increased aggressiveness, and the increased potential for becoming juvenile offenders.
Chairwoman of the National Authority for Child Protection, Ms Mariela Neagu, requested yesterday, in a debate concerning European policy regarding the quality of childhood, that through their policy, the European Union become more involved in the situation of Romanian children who are with their parents in Italy as there are no adequate services for them and there are many situations in which their rights are being violated. In Ms Neagu's opinion, it is important that the reaction of EU institutions in such situations are in general at the same level as the European response to the situation of children in need in Romania before EU accession.
The Chairwoman was speaking to a European forum in a debate organized yesterday, which also included Euro MPs Zita Gurmai, Renate Weber and Rovana Plumb, who initiated and organized the debates, since the report of the EU parliament committee recommending harmonization of strategies for ensuring quality of care for children in difficulty across European states.
In the special case of Romanian children left alone at home, solutions will not only be found by involving administrative structures of local and national government, including child protection and education specialists, but also through the involvement of NGOs specializing in the field. This would, in the opinion of participants, be the best route to follow to ensure that children left home alone will not drop out of school, risk suffering from depression or feelings of alienation, and, at worse, fall into patterns of criminal behavior.
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