Europe leads in freeing children from institutions

Europe leads in freeing children from institutions

Georgette Mulheir, April 2014

Europe leads in freeing children from institutions

J K Rowling, the founder of the children's charity Lumos. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Even the most dedicated followers of European political affairs may be forgiven for not carrying the fine detail of ex-ante conditionalities, introduced in the European Structural and Investment Funds Regulations 2014-2020, at the forefront of their minds. It is not area that generates many headlines.

Yet, in this dry corner of European law-making there has been a momentous development affecting the lives of millions of the most socially disadvantaged EU citizens – those living in institutions.

Not only that, new EU regulations passed in recent months – relating to billions of Euros - have established a principle that may ultimately bring a halt to the funding, worldwide, of so-called orphanages.

Lumos, JK Rowling’s children’s charity - of which I am Chief Executive Officer - has been at the heart of these developments. (Before we go any further, let us address the view that ‘orphanages are surely a good and necessary support for children who don’t have parents’. They are not. The majority of children in them are not orphans and research shows residential institutions seriously harm the health, development and life chances of all who live in them - with children and, particularly, babies the most vulnerable. Children in institutions are 10 times more likely to be involved in prostitution; 40 times more likely to have a criminal record; and 500 times more likely to commit suicide.)

With other groups, Lumos spent four years successfully advocating in Brussels, among EC officials and parliamentarians, for conditions – or conditionalities in EU-speak - to be attached to EU funding to Member States. This is because, in the past, hundreds of millions of Euros have been spent on renovating or building new institutions. The intent was good – to improve the conditions in which vulnerable people live. But the result was not. Studies show that even in the ‘improved’ institutions, poor and harmful practices continued. In one case, Euro140,000 was spent on an institution later investigated for a high level of deaths due to malnutrition, and highlighted in a UN report on torture; in another, Euro5.6m was spent on institutions in an area, only for concerns to surface about abuse and neglect in the same institutions.

One of the ex-ante conditionalities says in effect: you cannot spend the EU money on building or refurbishing orphanages and residential institutional settings. Now, you must spend it on the transition to community-based care.

The conditions – confirmed by the European Parliament in November 2013 - are ex ante, which means the country receiving them must demonstrate sustainable plans to spend money on alternatives to institutionalised care before the EU structural funds are released.

De-institutionalisation is now firmly established as an EU priority.EU funding provides vital assistance in meeting the ‘up-front’ costs of closing institutions and managing transition. The evidence suggests that, long-term, keeping children in families, with support, is significantly cheaper than running institutions.

The work to raise awareness of the harm caused by institutionalisation has already had an impact, ensuring that €357m in current EU funding for Member States has been spent on dismantling institutions and not on building new ones. Indeed, we have reached a tipping point in Europe in terms of accepting the principle that children should not be in institutions and so-called orphanages.

There are an estimated one million children in institutionalised care in the European region, largely due to the post-Communist legacy of State institutionalisation of children – typified most vividly for many people by images of Romanian orphanages. More than 90% have living relatives. Many are there because they are disabled, or have poor parents who cannot cope. Many are from ethnic minorities, such as the Roma.

For EU countries, the challenge lies in reforming child services to provide a community-based support for families, specialised residential care for those with the most complex needs, and inclusion in mainstream schools. Lumos is working in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Moldova to help governments and local authorities build new services to replace outdated institutions.

With the funding principle established, the question now arises: if de-institutionalisation and community and family-based care are the right approach for disadvantaged children in current EU Member States, are they not also right for the estimated eight million children in institutionalised care worldwide?

This EU is the world’s largest donor of aid for humanitarian and development purposes – with almost E27 billion available between 2014 and 2020.

This is why Lumos and others will work with the European Commission and Parliament to ensure the spirit of the ex-ante conditionalities is applied consistently across three other categories of nation which may receive aid funds - pre-accession states in various stages of preparation for potential entry into the EU; ‘neighbourhood’ region states; and developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

This is a potentially immensely powerful lever to end institutionalisation – and the influence of the European principle may reach even further. In a low-key event on April 8, in Brussels, Lumos – with Claude Moraes, Labour MEP for London – brought influential European Commission figures, MEPs and US diplomats together, for the first time in the same room, with leading members of the newly-established Global Alliance for Children. These include the US International Aid Department, the World Bank and large aid foundations in the US, Sweden and Switzerland.

Lumos is a key member of the Global Alliance and will work to ensure that the spirit and principle of the ex-ante conditionalities established in the EU influence the decisions of these huge international funders and bring closer the day when the harmful practices of institutionalisation are consigned to history.

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Tags: children in care, EU funding

Georgette Mulheir

Georgette Mulheir is the Chief Executive Officer at Lumos. For over 20 years she has worked around ...

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