Abandoned Roma children fill Europe's orphanages: study

(SOFIA) - Abandoned Roma children are found in large numbers in orphanages and homes for the disabled in central and eastern Europe, a study by a Bulgarian human rights group showed Monday, urging authorities to address the issue.

Close to 50 percent of all children abandoned in institutions in Bulgaria are of Roma origin, the study by the Bulgarian branch of the rights group Helsinki Committee (BHC) said, citing official data.

A BHC field study in orphanages and homes for children with disabilities across the country put the percentage even higher, at 63 percent.

No official data were available for the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Romania and Slovakia which also took part in the research conducted in cooperation with the Budapest-based European Roma Rights Centre.

But field studies in these countries last September found that the percentage of Roma children in institutions ranged from 28 percent in Romania, 40.6 percent in the Czech Republic and 65.9 percent in Hungary, to as much as 82.5 percent in Slovakia.

These abandonment rates were extremely high when considered against the fact that the overall Roma populations in these countries were only between three and 10 percent, BHC experts said.

"The effect is a life sentence on these children's development," BHC chairman Krasimir Kanev said Monday.

"The problem of abandoning Roma children should be addressed urgently and adequately," BHC researcher Slavka Kukova added.

Poverty, lack of education and employment, poor housing conditions, early marriages and the number of children in a family were factors responsible for the high abandonment rates, Kukova said.

Many of the children's families believed that they would receive better care in the institution, she said, citing data from interviews in Bulgaria's ghettos.

Kanev meanwhile pointed out that discrimination prevented Roma children from benefiting from adoption or foster care.

Bulgaria's government has multiplied its efforts to prevent child abandonment in homes and to shut the existing facilities by finding alternative care for the children.

To facilitate that process, special attention should be placed on the Roma children at risk as "institutions cannot be closed before we narrow the number of children at their entries," Kukova said.