The Issue

The Issue

The Challenges

The Challenges

UNICEF in action

UNICEF in action

Resources on Child Protection

Resources on Child Protection

Violence against children

Violence against children

Reforming children's institutions

Reforming children's institutions

Juvenile justice in Eastern Europe and Central Asia

Juvenile justice in Eastern Europe and Central Asia

Reform of the child care system: South East Europe Consultation

Reform of the child care system: South East Europe Consultation

Palencia Regional Consultation

Palencia Regional Consultation

Child trafficking in CEE/CIS

Child trafficking in CEE/CIS

Study on Violence against Children

Study on Violence against Children

 

Reforming children's institutions

© UNICEF/SWZK00407/Pirozzi

Azerbaijan, 2004: Girls in the dormitory of the boarding school for children without parental care in Sheki, 330 km north west of the capital, Baku.

More than a million children across Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States are thought to be living in institutions. The exact number is not known.

The regulation of these institutions and the standard of care within them denies children some of their most basic rights; notably a healthy, safe and caring environment. Children in residential institutions who experience problems may have nobody to turn to. The protective environment that should care for them: the state and its institutions, the community, the family – has failed them.

Family-based care
In the Russian Federation, for example, the rate of children left without formal parental care has more than tripled since the early 1990s. Across the region and overall, each year an estimated extra 250,000 children are growing up without parental care. Many countries are developing alternative family-based care as awareness of the psychological and developmental shortcomings of institutionalisation spread. However, despite encouraging signs, the rates of children being placed in institutions remains high. In 2005, more than half of all children in care were living in institutions.

UNICEF is tackling this important issue by developing community-based care systems for children without parents. It countries such as Romania significant progress has been made in developing fostering and adoption care for children. Progress is also being made in developing community-care in Georgia.

© Unicef/2007/JohnBudd

Artur, 14, lived in the orphanage for 5 years before joining the family home. His parents could not support him.

However, there is much work still to do, as we were reminded last November when the BBC broadcast a documentary filmed inside Mogilino children’s institution, in Bulgaria. The documentary depicted the grim conditions in which the children were living. The programme generated international interest with calls for action, including requests made to UNICEF, to help those children. The Bulgarian government formed an action plan to improve the quality of the immediate care of the children living in the institution, to assess the individual needs of every child in the institution and to help assess and improve the social welfare and foster care network in the locality of the institution. UNICEF assisted in all three areas. UNICEF and one of Bulgaria's national television networks also raised $1.35 million for the Mogilino children; funds that will be used to train staff and develop community-care for them.