Imagine your only a mere child and your parents are nothing more than a foggy memory, a distant voice on the phone! For hundreds of thousands of Romanian children this has become the norm as more and more parents flee the country in search of jobs abroad. The search of economic stability is nothing new, however the number of children left behind continues to grow and the long term effects are continuing to mount.
Short- or medium-term effects, according to Gabriela Tonk, deputy chief of the National authority for child protection also include “a higher risk that the child will suffer emotional, physical or sexual abuse. In extreme cases children are even recruited for prostitution or a criminal network.” (Children left behind as impoverished Romanians migrate).
Effects of Migration: Children Left at Home , a Soros Foundation Romania study compiled in October 2007, estimated that some 115,000 secondary students have at least one parent working abroad, 35,000 have both parents abroad, 55,000 have just their mother abroad and 80,000 have just their father abroad. The study illustrated the physiological effects that separation is having on the children left behind behind their families.
“These children usually encounter the same problems as children who lost their parents through divorce or death; loneliness, problems at school, psychological effects. There are things a parent can provide that a grandparent cannot; some of them just lose control over the children.”, according Mihaela Stefanescu, coordinator of the Soros study.
Now dubbed “migration orphans”, most end up in the care of grandparents or other relatives, however many more are finding themselves in group homes and orphanages.
“I understood at first, because my mother had no work and needed to pay for food for us. But when I talk to her on the phone each weekend, I tell my mother, please come back home, because I miss her so much. I tell her, please don't desert your children like some parents do. I would not leave my children behind like this.”, says Elena Andrea Pasca, 13, whose mother went to Spain two years ago to pick strawberries, and has since left her husband and married a Spanish man (Prosperity Without Parents).
The story of Romania's forgotten children may be new to many, however it has me reaching back in my memories some five or six years when I was living in Dublin. There was an obvious influx of migrant workers from Romania, one of which I soon befriend. A young woman, Mikaela, who was in her early 20's, we worked together in a large company. She was in the country sharing a tiny studio flat with her husband and both where working two jobs, sending almost every penny home or putting it in savings. They planned to live in Ireland for five years, and then return to Romania where they would then be able to live comfortably. By comfortably they planned to have only one job between them and have a few children. Soon Mikaela became pregnant, she worked until she was due and then took her maternity leave, all of which went too fast. For soon she would send her new baby son back to Romania to stay with her mother, so she could again work full time at her two jobs. The situation was hardly ideal, and the effects on a mother who felt she had no alternative, where undeniable.
The families torn apart by the quest for economic stability impacts not only children and their parents, but entire villages and Romanian society on the whole. The true impact of the children left behind are yet to be know, however it is well apparent that besides the economic impact the effects of separation are sure to leave a lasting and detrimental effect on Romania's future leaders.
