Europe Children in institutions issue picked up in European debate

Project : TDHIF in Europe 29 Jun 2011 | state care homes

Brussels, 28. June 2011. “End placing children under three years in institutions” is one of the calls for action that UNICEF conveyed in its freshly published report on formal care and adoption of Children in Eastern Europe and Central Asia At home or in a home launched today in European Parliament.

Together with the report of OHCHR Forgotten Europeans, Forgotten Rights concerning human rights of persons placed in institutions, the two reports revealed that more than a million children and adults are living in long-term residential care across Europe and Central Asia, with vulnerabilities to violations and abuses. “Some member states of the EU should stop using the European Structural Funds to reinforce their child care systems in their current form”, stressed Jan Jarab, Regional Representative of OHCHR. Although representatives of the European Parliament, European Commission’s DGs Justice, Development and Cooperation, and Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion gave some responses on current EU actions on the issue, much more remains to be done by Europe in its neighbourhood, structural fund and social policies.

The event took place in the context that the Council of the European Union has just adopted its Conclusion Tackling child poverty and promoting child well-being on 17 June 2011.

Participating in the event, TDHIF also closely monitors the issue, continuing the momentum of its two press conferences in Brussels and Geneva end of January last year on the phenomenon of foreign unaccompanied minors disappearing from institutions where they had been placed by authorities of EU countries. The related study, Disappearing, departing, running away, A Surfeit of Children in Europe?, was carried out by Terre des Hommes in 2008-2009 in Belgium, Spain, France and Switzerland (TdhIF)