Source: Eurochild

This has resulted in ever increasing numbers of children, young people and families finding themselves located in areas of concentrated social disadvantage on the margins of society where ethnic minority and migrant people are heavily represented.
These circumstances have generated desperation in some and anger in others. They are also a major factor in the emergence of distinctive forms of group offending and public disorder in these neighbourhoods and, more recently, rioting in the major UK cities.
These forms of offending are also evident amongst marginalised young people in other North American and European cities and, as Malcolm Stevens the IJJO’s UK Commissioner has observed, they represent….. a new and quite different entrée into crime and delinquency, with different justification values and a different perspective of safety and respect.

For these reasons it has become necessary to look beyond traditional, individualised approaches to work with young people in trouble and focus instead upon work with groups and the communities in which they live.

Therefore, the International Juvenile Justice Observatory is pleased to announce the 5th Biennial Conference, which will be held in London at Park Plaza Riverbank Hotel on Tuesday 6 to Wednesday 7 November 2012.

Source:  IJJO

The newsletter includes information about project activities development in favor of its main beneficiaries, which are young care leavers and/or teenagers who prepare to leave residential institutions.
There are also included useful information about publications elaborated within the project, which includes interesting statistics about care leaver’s situation in Moldova and about provided social services to help them build a new life after the boarding school graduation.

In every issue of the Newsletter are included as well, different successful stories about care leavers that have been assisted within the project and reached good results in studies and/or employment.

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• Newsletter_Young for the future_NR 2

Source: Eurochild

The OSCE has stressed the urgent need for Moldova to enhance prevention of child trafficking through child protection measures and to pursue its efforts in the deinstitutionalization of people with special needs.

Human trafficking is the illegal trade of humans for the purpose of exploitation. It infringes the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.  At European level, it represents a severe violation of both the European Convention on Human Rights (art.4) and the Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings. Labour and sexual exploitation are the most frequently reported reasons for presumed or alleged child trafficking.

The OSCE is the world’s largest security-oriented intergovernmental organization. Since 2003 it has established a mechanism for combating the trafficking of human beings, which is aimed at raising public awareness of the problem and building the political will within participating states to tackle it effectively.
The Republic of Moldova recognizes the existence in the country of the problem of human trafficking but has so far been struggling to put an end to it
The government of Moldova has though recently approved a new regulation to redirect the financial resources from long stay institutions towards community-based programs and services.

Source: Inclusion Europe

According to the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, on average 8,600 children graduate annually from residential care schools.

The study financed by European Commision and carried out by «Ai.Bi. – Associazione Amici dei Bambini» within the Project “The Consolidation of Non-government Organizations (NGOs) and the Government and Local Self-government Bodies of Ukraine and Moldova to Promote Social Integration of Residential Care School Leavers”, revealed that at present care leavers in Ukraine, as well as in Moldova, do not have sufficient skills for transition to independent living; in addition, no support mechanisms are available.

Please find here our newsletter for further information.

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Source:  National Network for Children – Bulgaria

Source:  Children and Young People Now

Earlier this year Unicef warned that we are going backwards in meeting the 2020 target to eliminate child poverty. Some families are struggling to provide the basics for their children as families across Europe are slipping into poverty.

Children living in poverty are more likely to suffer neglect, according to new data published by the NSPCC – the UK’s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. For families already under pressure, poverty can be the factor that pushes them over the edge.

Child abuse doesn’t stem from poverty. Neglect and other forms of abuse are present across the whole of society, and many very poor people are also loving and caring parents. But there is a complex link between the two issues. Many parents have levels of resilience that help them to deal with these issues, especially if they have access to wider support, but poverty can take them beyond the point where they can cope and this can have a serious impact for their children. Lack of hot meals during the day, or even lack of food, being alone at home while parents are working, no extra-school activities, these can all be consequences of the drop in disposable income, the loss of income, and cuts to available services.

If services are unavailable to help parents who are slipping into poverty, children will continue to suffer. Cuts to support for vulnerable families are a false economy. The financial and human costs of providing early support are dwarfed by the costs of letting problems spiral to the point where a child has to be taken into care.

Now more than ever, with tighter budgets and limited resources, we need effective early interventions to help families thrive. Therefore we repeat what we always state in all our publications and events, cuts to social services should be avoided, and growth can only be relaunched in a society that is well and healthy. Children and families should not be gambled with through budget cuts.
Recent data confirm that children are more vulnerable to poverty and social exclusion than other groups in the European Union, reporting a higher risk of poverty (20%) compared to the overall population (17%). The risk increases to 25% for children who live in large families, and exceeds 30% for the ones living with lone parents.

Poverty and social exclusion are largely known to be determined by socio-economic, cultural and environmental conditions that are often transmitted from generation to generation, with the consequence of deepening the income divide and perpetuating societal inequalities. Wellbeing in childhood largely shapes the future adult, recalling the need to prioritize children’s development.
COFACE stands for a recognition of the fundamental role that various policies supporting families can play for the prevention of poverty, breaking its inter-generational transmission and attaining the highest levels of child well-being. COFACE also stands for a coherent EU approach to family policies and the child-rights agenda at EU level and calls for the adoption of a Commission Recommendation on Child Poverty and Wellbeing by 2012.

Other key proposals include: the development of more accurate indicators to monitor the different dimensions of child wellbeing; the promotion of family-friendly employment policies, based on the principle of non-discrimination; the effective implementation of the Flagship Initiative ‘A European Platform against Poverty’; the establishment of common EU criteria for quality early years’ services; the full involvement of civil society, and in particular organisations representing children and families in the elaboration, implementation and assessment of all EU initiatives affecting them.

Source: Coface

Of course, I don’t remember any of this myself because I was so young when it happened, but I’ve heard these stories so many times and each time, they have left me feeling angry and confused. To make me feel better, my parents often reassured me that my birth mother must have loved me very much, indeed, because the orphanage told us that I was left at a crowded train station. This showed that my birth mother wanted me to be found and wanted me to have a better life, they said.

It makes me feel sad that I don’t know anything about my birth mother. I don’t even know the simplest facts that most children (even other adopted children) know, such as my mother’s name or age, or what her favorite food is, or if  I resemble her in any way. I don’t know if anyone really understands how much I wish I knew those things that most children take for granted. For years, thinking about my birth mother caused me a lot of inner turmoil, and I blamed myself a lot of the time for my birth mother abandoning me. Maybe I did something wrong that caused her not to want me, but I will never really know.

I know that if I ever had a baby, I wouldn’t separate from her for any reason at all. I would make it work, somehow and some way, no matter what. I’d  remind my precious baby girl each day how much I love her and how important she is to me and how I’d never let her out of my sight. The feeling of not being good enough still haunts me to this day. If I am not “perfect,” I fear that people will walk right out of my life. That anxiety – of being left – is something I’m still working hard to overcome. It was particularly bad when I was in kindergarten. From the time one of my parents dropped my off at the classroom to the end of the day at pick up time, I would worry: What if they don’t come back? I remember crying every single school day, terrified  that my mom or dad would forget to pick me up and would end up leaving me and never coming back to get me, the way my birth mother left me that day in the train station.  The other children in my class didn’t understand and couldn’t reassure me. I felt different from the rest of them and thought something must be wrong with me. I made myself feel sick every morning, just anticipating the end of the day. I was taken to a child therapist for awhile, but it did not help much. I was too shy to talk and all I can remember during those sessions was she made me draw and play a bunch of games.  Luckily, a year later, my older sister joined my school and I felt a sudden sense of security knowing she was in the same building I was in and I no longer cried at school. My attachment issues with my parents got better year after year and I no longer was afraid to go to school.

The good news is that now that I am older, I don’t think about my adoption as an upsetting thing at all. Of course, at times I wish I had more information about what led to my being adopted and about my birth family, but mostly I don’t think about it. I don’t feel any different from a girl living with the parents who gave birth to her. My adopted parents are my parents, not my “adopted” parents.  I have two mothers—one who gave me life and the other who let me live it. My family is the one in America. I no longer associate feeling anger with my birth mother.  I find myself feeling more grateful and happy (that I ended up in a family with parents who really wanted me and could take care of me) than upset.

Though I have struggled with my adoption at times, especially as a young kid, I now honor my birth mother’s choice. If she hadn’t decided to give me up, everything as I know now would be altered dramatically including all the people in contact with me. I would be living a completely different lifestyle. I thank my birth mother as often as I think of her for giving me a loving family and safe place to live.

In short, I have forgiven my birth mother for the hard thing she did.  It was hard for me,  of course, but I am now mature enough to realize that it must have been very difficult for her, too. I realized at some point that I was embracing my negative feelings as a way of staying attached to my birth mother, who I never really knew and whose circumstances I could never really understand.  I recognized that it would be foolish not to let go of those bad feelings, which were hurting me and making it harder for me to appreciate and enjoy the life I had now. Forgiveness was a letting go of the bad and a letting in of the good.  And that is why I forgive.

By Juliet Meiying Ercolano