Hungary "I would like to give up my child into state care"

April 20, 2009

Comment: The article in Hungary’s major daily newspaper describes the negative effects of the financial crisis on families and children. It introduces three specific cases in which parents do not find any other solution but to give up their children into state care. One is a single father who lost his job and consequently his rented place. The grandparents are already caring for the bigger brother but cannot take in the smaller one and no other family was found. The second case is a family, again lost their jobs and only found work abroad, where they are not allowed to take their children. The third one is a family of four children where the kids have already been monitored for being ‘at risk’ but before the crisis they were able to rent a home and the mother worked. With the crisis she lost her job and the grandparents were unwilling to take all children in.

The child protection services are quoted saying that t*hese cases in themselves do not constitute a tendency*, but they certainly ring the alarm bell. In the 12-year existence of the newly designed child protection systems in Hungary, the cases when parents would give up their children has dropped to almost zero. According to the statistics collected by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour, the number of children requiring state services has increased in the last two months of 2008 and the first two months of 2009 shows a further 8% increase. The crisis is hitting families hard, increasing their vulnerability and in the absence of coping mechanisms they often fall back to state services.

The original article (in Hungarian) can be found here