Katja blows the whistle in 2014 CDR - refused further involvement in child rights

CDR 2014:

Since the month of September; I started having back pains. The doctor considered this linked to my work and ordered me to interrupt work (sick leave), which lasted two months. Since September; I also expressed to my Head of Unit my wish to no longer work on Montenegro, and that I wanted to be transferred to another job inside DG ELARG (or outside). This because I discovered that the IPA financing in the field of child protection; especially where it concerns de-institutionalisation, given to Montenegro since 2011 did not really serve to reform the child protection system, but created a situation where children had a tendency to leave the country (in the context of intercountry adoption) rather than to remain in alternative care (return in the family of origin, foster care). This situation was even more difficult because the project did not target the creation of family-type homes, which do not exist in Montenegro.

Well conscious of similar problems in the past in Romania (which the demand for children had created a market in children) as responsible for the rights of the child in the Romania Team of DG ELARG in 2004-2005, I did not want to work with the Montenegrin authorities in this context which contributed to a "legalised" traffic in children. Especially because during the pre-accession of Romania, an Independent Panel of Experts on Family Law, established by the Commission, had concluded that in the case of Romania in 2004, intercountry adoption cannot be considered as a measure of child protection but has to be, if all, an exceptional measure.

This approach hs been also confirmed by the note about the lessons learned about the rights of children in Romania addressed by DG ELARG to DG JUST in 3013 (Ares(2013)3769525).

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