Everything you need to know about children left behind
There is a lot of information available out there about children left behind, most of which is presented in a complicated way. This page is designed to provide you with answers to any questions you might have and paint the whole picture of the situation.
Use these links to jump to the question of your choice:
1. Who are the ‘children left behind’?
Those are the children whose one or both parents have left the country where their family lives and migrated abroad to another country, mostly, for economic reasons, such as a more favourable financial situation and better job prospects elsewhere. The parents are absent from the life of children who stay behind in the country of origin with the other parent, grandparents, distant family, in orphanages or even on their own.
2. How many children left behind are there?
The numbers vary from source to source. In Poland, the latest known figure is 110,000 children from back in 2008, when 27% of schoolchildren had at least one parent abroad. The Polish Ombudsman for Children has since updated the latter figure to 20% last year, but the study used a representative sample of just 4169 children in 100 schools. Poland’s Ministry of Education uses a bigger sample of 2663 educational institutions and 493,909 pupils to compare the number of children left behind in 2010 and 2013. There, 28,608 schoolchildren, or 5,79%, had at least one parent absent. The number of cases increased by 0.49% in the three years.
Children left behind is not an exclusively Polish phenomenon, however. In Europe, the latest official estimate from 2011 is around 500,000 children, according to the Children Left Behind network, with most of them – an estimated 85,000, living in Romania. There are some living in other countries too, including Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania and Moldova. Last year’s figures show that the most children left behind out of the comparable countries were in Bulgaria, 26%, followed by Moldova, 21%, and Poland, 20%. Click here to find out more about the situation in Europe.
3. When did the trend of children left behind start?
People from Eastern Europe have always been migrating to western countries to find better work and improve their quality of life, but the numbers began to increase dramatically after the 2004 and 2007 enlargements of the European Union. Countries such as Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and the Baltic states saw the gates open for thousands of their citizens to travel more freely inside Europe and settle down where the living conditions and work opportunities seemed the best. The main intra-European migration became: from Romania towards Italy and Spain, from Poland towards the UK and Germany, and from the Baltic countries towards the UK, Ireland, Germany and Sweden. With freedom come consequences however, as many parents who chose to move away have had to leave their families and children behind.
4. Many sources refer to children left behind as ‘euro orphans’. Why?
‘Euro orphans’ is a term used often by the Polish, as well as European, press to label a large group of children who have experienced serious mental, physical or emotional problems as a result of their parents’ absence. It is a pejorative, stigmatising term, and it implies that a child has lost their parents, while in reality, the parents are still alive, but are not present in a child’s everyday life for a period of time.
Poland’s Ministry of Education defines ‘euro orphanhood’ as a situation where economic migration of one or both parents leads to the destruction of the family structure, the disorder of the socialisation process of children and the reduction in the emotional exchanges among family members. Therefore, not every child whose parents have migrated abroad to work should be treated as an ‘euro orphan’, as in some cases good relations remain and normal development of a child takes place even after the parents have gone.
5. How do children left behind cope when their parents are absent?
Any child will miss their parents when they are absent for an extended period of time, and it is the same case with this group of children. Most cope well with the absence, because they know that the decision to leave was necessary for the good of the family, and some find the experience a useful ‘life lesson’, because they are forced to mature and become independent, responsible individuals.
But while some children cope well with the absence, all of them experience an emotional loss. This has various consequences, which depend on the case. Some children feel abandoned, and live through everything internally. Some can become more distrustful, closed people with low self-esteem. Other children’s emotional intelligence can be underdeveloped due to the lack of a role model.
Other consequences range from lack of motivation, learning difficulties and teenage rebellion, to being more prone to addictions, neurotic disorders, depression and, in extreme cases, suicide.
6. What help is there available for children left behind?
In Poland, the state offers help through several institutions. Schools and psychologists recognise a problem and can offer counselling and therapy. Social welfare centres assist the children with finances, housing and social life. The Church offers emotional and spiritual help, with occasional material support. Finally, the police and legal practitioners monitor any situation where a child or a parent may be breaking the law as a consequence of a parent’s migration. All of these institutions are tasked with monitoring children left behind and support them, but only if the children show signs that they need or want the help.
7. Is that enough?
No. Experts say that there is a lack of early enough diagnosis of problems developing as a consequence of parents’ departure, integrated support for children, and monitoring a child until they turn 18.
There is a need for the parents to be made more aware of the potential problems prior to their departure, as well as for family consultations to take place more regularly in order to assess the state of relations between the family members. The state institutions also need to take the initiative in recognising when a child has a problem that has been caused by their parent’s migration.
8. What is the EU doing to help?
The EU has recognised children left behind as a vulnerable group, recommended policies to tackle any problems, and commissioned studies, but no specific measures to help these children have been implemented across the bloc by the EU, as employment and social policy mainly falls within the competence of the member states.
The union has, however, funded the Children Left Behind network in 2011. The network brings together non-governmental organisations, centres for social studies and universities to exchange information, influence political action and help the children with occassional on-the-ground work. This includes setting up youth centres in countries such as Romania, and educating individuals such as teachers, psychologists and social workers how to recognise and help children left behind. Their ultimate aim is to protect the rights of children and reduce the negative effect of migration on them.
Click here to find out more about Children Left Behind or here to learn about how the awareness of children left behind has been raised at the European level over the years.
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