Romania - Women's rights
General objective:
Provide information and promote access to social and medical care (especially gynaecological care) and contraception for parents, particularly vulnerable and isolated women. The ultimate aim is to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, and thus the number of abortions and abandoned children.
Location
Romania
23 departments
Beneficiaries
100,000
people
Period
Since 2000
Context:
Thirty years ago, the world discovered Romanian orphanages, veritable death houses where 120,000 children lived in extreme deprivation. Some were left tied to their beds all day. In 1989, abandonment had become a commonplace act supported by the state. This system was only abolished in 1997, but it continues to persist today due to a challenging economic context.
Despite the gradual reform of the child protection system since the fall of Ceaușescu in 1989, the number of women continuing to give birth to and abandon unwanted children remained very high for a long time. Even though access to contraception is improving, Romania has the highest abortion rate in the European Union.
Project description:
Since 1990, the association SERA, now merged with CARE, has been working to uphold every child's right to grow up in a family. We develop programs for social inclusion, abandonment prevention, and the closure of outdated placement centers. Our various projects have already helped more than 85,000 vulnerable children.
Since 2000, around fifty social workers and nurses have been traveling across Romania to reach parents who lack access to existing family planning services in more than half of the country's counties. We train and fund mobile family planning teams. These teams are then placed under the responsibility of local authorities.
Between 2000 and 2021, CARE invested more than €865,500 to establish these teams in Romania, which have reached and advised over 110,000 beneficiaries, more than half of whom decided to use a contraceptive method. In the regions concerned, there has been a significant decrease in the number of unwanted pregnancies, as reflected in the reduction of abortions and child abandonment among these vulnerable populations. Since 2021, these family planning access activities have been directly integrated into social inclusion services. These services include activities for the prevention of child abandonment, family reintegration, and socio-professional integration for young people. They typically employ a team of three people: a psychologist, a nurse, and a social worker.
Specific objectives:
• Promote access to family planning services by training and funding itinerant family planning teams;
• Raising awereness about contraception.
Key Themes:
Health
Maternity
Information
CARE Belgium supports the project in collaboration with other members of the CARE network, in particular through communication and fundraising activities.