The smell of chlorine on floors constantly wet with disinfectant; doctors in heavy white coats; and a persistently loud silence. Such a sterile, impersonal scene could be mistaken for a hospital.
Instead it is what Liliana Rotaru remembers from her first depressing visit to Moldova’s largest residential institution (RI) for children in 2007.
Rotaru is chief executive of Copil, Comunitate, Familie (CCF), which translates as Child, Community, Family, the partner organisation of Hope and Homes for Children (HHfC). The organisations have been working together since the 2000s to close Moldova’s RIs and reintegrate children into families.
Progress is evident in homes that are full of colour and laughter
JACK HILL FOR THE TIMES
Hope and Homes for Children (HHfC) is one of three chosen charities for this year’s Times and Sunday Times Christmas Appeal. Every pound donated to Hope and Homes for Children by readers will be doubled up to £500,000 by an anonymous donor.
Rotaru said: “Children were treated like patients, it was clean but there was no personal attachment, doctors wouldn’t take children in their arms. We created a group home for some severely disabled children and the manager told us that in the institution where they lived before, they were given preventative antibiotics for pneumonia because they were left on their back, unable to cough.” It took a year to wean the children off medication.
CCF started in 2004 and has partnered HHfC since 2005. Since the government’s first RI strategy began in 2007, the number of children in orphanages has dropped from 12,000 across 67 large institutions, to 458 children across 42 RIs of all size. Many of these 42 are smaller and less damaging, with a maximum capacity of 25.
• Donate to The Times and Sunday Times Christmas Appeal
For Rotaru, however, the fight is far from over. These 458 children include some of the most vulnerable young people, including those with disabilities, psychological issues stemming from neglect, and large groups of siblings. There is also still no blanket ban on new admissions to institutions. Even if the current 458 can find homes, there is nothing to prevent more vulnerable young people entering orphanages.
In an institution in central Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, the progress — and the need for a moratorium to eliminate RIs altogether — is apparent. In place of medical charts and chlorine, there are bright marigold walls adorned with pictures of children playing. Plants on the window ledges frame and lend a cheer to the snowy outdoor landscape dominated by severe Soviet architecture.
In one room, where 25 children aged from one to seven still live in permanent care, silence has been replaced by laughter and the children hold hands with the staff. But their clothes lockers still bear numbers rather than their names and they all sleep in one room.
Downstairs, in the emergency placement room for children up to the age of one, a 20-day-old girl, lies silently in her cot. She is watched over by a nurse and warmly dressed, but since her mother abandoned her at the maternity hospital she has been in this institution without a family of her own.
Anna Bezobrazova, a director at the Children’s Protection Department in Chișinău, said: “These are abandoned kids, kids with no identity, we don’t know who many of them are.” If their family can be found, they must be rehomed within six months but they could remain in the RI if they are orphaned.
To reduce the number of children entering orphanages, both organisations work on services that aim to prevent parents giving up their children. The Chisinau institution is a children’s crèche and “respite” service for children with disabilities that provides specialised daycare while parents work.
A mother and baby unit, where five mothers with six children live, was opened with the support of Unicef and prevents vulnerable mothers abandoning or being separated from their children due to health issues.
Rotaru proposes that the final push to close orphanages is led with a moratorium.
She hopes that Moldova’s entry to the EU, which requires that its members close orphanages, will add further impetus as the government targets a 2030 accession date.
“The ministry should be really bold and brave and say, ‘From 2026 or so, it’s illegal to place young children, age zero to six, in residential institutions’, this would give one year to focus on developing foster care and preventative services.”
Every pound donated to Hope and Homes for Children by readers will be doubled up to £500,000 by an anonymous donor.
Find out more about the Christmas Appeal and donate by calling 0151 286 1594 or by clicking the button below.