Migration is a well-known phenomenon to the Moldovan people. The decision to leave the country to work abroad is mostly associated with adults’ desire to meet their own needs related to house, family, health, upbringing and development of their children. Some care more about the welfare of their families. Others are looking for experience and professional development. The reasons people migrate are very different and it may be for a short and fixed period or for a long and indefinite one.
This decision is challenging and can be risky sometimes, involves costs and benefits, and change, and by making up their minds to leave to work abroad parents often jump into the unknown. In most cases, they could not or did not want their children to join them, because they intended to come back, leaving them with grandparents, close relatives or other people.
This brochure calls on all the child protection professionals to be responsive and act to safeguard and protect the children whose parents are going to leave or have already left to work abroad.
Understanding their needs and vulnerabilities associated with parents’ absence is a way to finding the best and most appropriate solutions for each and every child. The information below will help child protection professionals to get a better understanding of what is going on with the child left behind and act in the child’s best interests.
Only by joining efforts will they manage to safeguard and protect the children left behind.
The brochure contains the following topics:
- Why monitor the situation of children left behind?
- Truths and myths about children left behind
- What are the major needs of children left behind?
- What actions should professionals take before parents leave to work abroad?
- What actions should professionals take after parents have left to work abroad?
- Confidentiality of information about the child and the child’s family
- Legislative references and other useful resources
"Families Without Borders: Children left behind? Parents gone abroad? Answers for professionals" brochure is published within the "Migration and Child Protection" Project, implemented by Terre des hommes Moldova, with the financial support of the Netherlands Embassy under the Human Rights Program.
For more details visit www.farahotare.md.