Back ADOPTION

The institution of national and inter-country adoption has developed greatly in these recent years becoming a phenomenon of special relevance that inspired many studies and research. Bearing in mind such recent developments and with the aim of studying the different approaches to the institution of adoption and above all of making a comparative analysis of the legislation regulating national and inter-country adoption in the EU countries, the European Network of National Observatories on Childhood (ChildONEurope) decided to realise a study on this issue. Furthermore the survey on adoption intends to respond to the exigency of more knowledge and information sharing on the legislation, data and practices on the subject.

The survey was realised through the analysis of questionnaires prepared by the ChildONEurope Secretariat and filled in by the ChildONEurope partners, as well as thorough the analysis of the relevant national legislations.
A peculiar aspect of this survey regards the fact that among the ChildONEurope partners it is possible to find countries of origin and of destination of adopted minors, being this aspect particularly relevant as concerns inter-country adoption.

The questionnaire was compiled by Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, United Kingdom, the Netherlands. The research shed light on a number of very interesting and sometimes controversial issues such as the possibility to adopt by singles and by homosexual couples, the rights of the adopted children to know their origins. The survey includes some statistical data concerning the number of adopted children in the national and inter-country adoption procedure disaggregated by sex and class of age. Among the most critical areas we remember, as an example, the limited availability of the services for adaptation to the scholastic environment by the adopted children both in terms of school programmes and policies. Projects that can be regarded as best practices in this field have not been realised in a systematic way, indicating that there isn't yet an awareness about the importance of this issue. The majority of countries reported that they have no ad hoc services. A similar consideration can be made as regards the adoption of children with psycho-physical handicaps as only a very limited number of countries have taken specific steps in terms of legislative measures or facilitations for such cases.

The issue of post adoption services was regarded as particularly relevant and as one that needs to be further developed by the EU countries and therefore it was decided to devote the second part of the survey specifically to this subject.
The questionnaire on this issue was answered by Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain Austria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden, The Netherlands, United Kingdom. From the survey it emerges that the availability of services for providing support to adoptive families normally derives from a law, albeit often not specifically. Frequently, however, post adoptive support is not recognised as a self-standing service but is included among the many other services provided by subjects involved in the adoption process in various ways.

In the majority of cases, accompaniment of adoptive families does not come under the control and supervision of the competent public authorities except indirectly, linked to the authorisation of the function and consequent vigilance by the latter over the private bodies.
Furthermore support assistance by public authorities is provided almost exclusively after a specific request by adoptive families. Indeed, it is commonly felt by legislators in the various countries considered that once the adoption measure has been pronounced no grounds exist for interfering in the life of the "legitimate" family.

To download the Guidelines on Post-adoption Services

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• Report
  Report on adoption (January 2006)
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• Legislation
  • Austria
  • Belgium
  • Cyprus
  • Czech Republic
  • Denmark
  • Estonia
  • Finland, France
  • Hungary
  • Ireland
  • Italy
  • Lituania
  • Luxembourg
  • Poland
  • Portugal
  • Slovak Republic
  • Spain
  • Sweden
  • United Kingdom

European Seminar on Post-adoption: Which Approaches, Models, and Support Services to Adoptive Families Relations

• Programme
  download (file pdf, 131kb)
• Aims and structure
  download (file pdf, 99kb)
• Presentations
  • Survey on Adoption (Raffaella Pregliasco)
    download (file pdf, 80kb)
  • Post adoption services as an instrument of implementation of the Hague Convention (Jennifer Degeling)
    download (file pdf, 111kb)
  • La post adoption: vers un équilibre des droits et intérêts des adoptés des adoptants et des familles d'origine (Isabelle Lammerant) (FR)
    download (file pdf, 95kb)
  • The Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Child's Right to an Identity (Marta Santos Pais)
    download (file pdf, 258kb)
• ChildONEurope partners experiences on post adoption services' best practices
  
• Austria
• Belgium
• Czech Republic
• Denmark
• Estonia
• Finland
• France
• Greece
• Ireland
• Italy
• Lithuania
• Luxembourg
• Malta
• Portugal
• Slovakia
• Spain
• The Netherlands
• Working groups
  • Access to the origins
    download (file pdf, 181kb)
  • Support and accompaniment services for the adoptive families
    download (file pdf, 125kb)
  • Adoption failures
    download (file pdf, 79kb)
• Bibliography
  download (file pdf, 791kb)
• Filmography
  download (file pdf, 77kb)

Back ABUSE

One of the reasons that urged the ChildONEurope Secretariat to study this issue, according to its functions of exchange of knowledge and information, was the multidimensional phenomenon of child abuse, which is widely underestimated in almost all the EU Member States. In fact, the child abuse is a considerable problem: an estimate from the World Health Organization (WHO) shows that 40 million children aged 0 to 14 around the world suffer from maltreatment and require health and social care. Evidences show that children, who have been maltreated, suffer many short and long-term consequences and that adults who were maltreated where they were children suffer illnesses that are the indirect consequence of their childhood injuries. For these reasons, and not only, the Secretariat decided to undertake the study on child abuse, funding common instruments for compare different experiences and approaches to the collecting of data in this area in all the countries composing the European Network of National Observatories on Childhood.

The review has started from the preparation of a qualitative questionnaire that was sent to the ChildONEurope Members and Associated Members concerned two major areas: the institutional framework and the data systems on child abuse. The first question enquired on the survey was if a good collection of data on this field would prevent violence. We focused our attention on the data systems of the EU countries, trying to understand the problems related to the national mechanism of collecting, the definition of child abuse used in the various countries, the indicators, the problems of comparison of data and information. Another interesting question that we have considered in the research is the one concerning the legal obligation to report cases of suspected "child abuse". We have seen that not in all the countries there is a legal obligation to report this kind of situation.

The second part of the first phase of the survey was dedicated to the data collection. In particular we considered the national system of statistics on child abuse (16 countries out of 20 responding to the questionnaire, declared the presence of some forms of National system of statistics on child abuse), the sectors of data collection, then the sources of data, the territorial organisations of data sources (regional or national). Finally we considered the national system of registration of child abuse (local, national...) and we analysed the different typologies to register the children (Emotional Abuse, Physical Abuse, Sexual Abuse, Neglect). Concerning the institutional framework we considered the mechanism and the structures that have the responsibility for addressing violence against children: social administrations, particular parliamentary structures, national, federal, regional institutions ecc.

The second phase of the survey had four basic intentions: to verify the status of the statistics on child abuse, to identify a minimum set of common data, to update and enlarge the knowledge on the juridical framework and to prepare an overview on the legal approach to the problem. Through a second quantitative questionnaire the Secretariat asked to provide data related to Judicial, Social and Health sectors and available statistics (at a national or regional level) on the various categories of child abuse. The data were analysed considering the some specific aspects of the phenomenon (e.g. type of child abuse, or author of abuse, etc.), the type of desegregations of available data (e.g. no. of child victims by age, no. of offences of child abuse reported by place of commission of the offence, etc.) and the sources of data. We have observed a difficulty, very relevant, in the collection of data and in the analyse of them because of the different mechanisms of collecting, different cultures and different definitions of child abuse.

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Back CHILDREN'S LEGAL REPRESENTATION

On the occasion of its Semester of the EU Presidency (1st January to 30th June 2008), the Republic of Slovenia decided to hold a meeting of the Permanent Intergovernmental Group L'Europe de l'Enfance (PIGEU) on the 26th of March 2008 in Ljubljana. For this event, the Slovenian Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Affairs has entrusted the ChildONEurope Secretariat with the mandate of carrying out the survey on "National Systems of Children's Legal Representation", considering its terms of reference and its relations with PIGEU.
The comparative review mainly analyzes and compares the national experiences and practices on children's legal representation undertaken at the national level by the Government in EU Countries selected by the Slovenian Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Affairs: Austria, Germany, Ireland and Italy. Along sharing positive experiences, the research aims at pointing out the issues on which EU Countries could improve their policies of intervention on child advocacy accomplishing the CRC principles.

The first part of the survey report explains the origin, aims, methodology and content of the survey, while the second focuses on the CRC approach, the main CRC principles related to the subject and the CRC Committee indications. In its Recommendations it underlines the necessity of specialized training for legal representatives, so as the availability and effectiveness of legal representation for children.

The third section of the report presents the experiences of each analyzed country with reference to the legal system's structure, the founding legislation and appointment procedures, so as the composition of the child welfare authority and the procedures employed to establish the mandate of legal representation. The information provided only by four of the selected partners (Austria, Germany, Ireland and Italy) have been compared in the fourth chapter. It resulted that in the majority of domestic experiences observed, references to the issue of children's legal representation can be found in general legal provisions and in national laws. It has been noticed that the founding legislation is often much older than the main international instruments related to children's rights.

The respect of the child's best interest is guaranteed by taking into high consideration the parental role of guidance and parental authority. Therefore the intervention of an external representative is requested only when the parents are not able or are unwilling to act in the child's interest in a constructive manner. Along this, some States have also enacted forms of parenting support. In the majority of the cases, when the child faces situations that could jeopardize his/her development, the appointment of the legal representative is based on a legal duty. In some specific cases parents can be involved in the process through the expression of their own consent. The entities in charge of the intervention can be collective or a single person, anyway all the experiences showed do dedicate a certain attention to the educational and professional background of the children's legal representative.

The present survey highlights that the issue of children's legal representation seems to be a subject that receives increasing attention in particular because its implications are becoming day by day a source of increasing concern for the national and international community.

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Back SURVEY ON THE CRC COMMITTEE'S CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS ON THE LAST EU COUNTRIES' REPORTS

On the occasion of its Semester of EU Presidency (from 1 January to 31 June 2006), the Federal Republic of Austria decided to hold a L'Europe de l'Enfance meeting on the 2nd of May 2006 in Vienna. For this event, the Austrian Federal Ministry of Social Security, Generations and Consumer Protection entrusted the ChildONEurope Secretariat with the mandate of carrying out a survey on the concluding observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (Committee) on the last national reports discussed by the 25 EU Member Countries, 2 EU Accession Countries (Bulgaria and Romania), and 2 Candidate Countries (Croatia and Turkey).

The overall objective of this survey was to support the discussion about mainstream children's rights in the policies implemented at the national level within the 25 EU Member Countries and the 4 EU Accession and Candidate Countries on the basis of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). In this framework, the aim of the comparative analysis of the 25+4 Concluding observations was to identify the issues most frequently examined by the Committee, the points of strength and of weakness of the CRC implementation in the EU Countries' policies. This survey did not make a qualitative comparison of the national policies on the child's rights, but a comparison of the identified specific issues. This analysis aimed, on the one hand, at sharing best practices on the identified points of strength and on the other at pointing out the issues on which the EU Countries can improve their intervention policies. The survey results have been presented during the L'Europe de l'Enfance meeting held in Vienna on 2 May 2006.

In compliance with the mandate and the aims mentioned above, the survey was realised on the basis of the following steps. First of all, the collection of the Committee Concluding observations on the last national reports presented by the 25 EU Member Countries and 4 EU Accession and Candidate Countries. In the second place, the elaboration of a comparative analysis concerning the status of presentation and discussion of the national reports and of the Concluding observations of the Committee. The survey has mainly focused on the general measures of implementation of the CRC. In the third place, the analysis of the Concluding observations, identifying the common positive and critical points emerging more frequently from the Committee Concluding observations and also on the issues addressed by the Intergovernmental Group L'Europe de l'Enfance. In the forth place, the comparison of those common positive and critical points. And finally, the elaboration of conclusions emerging from the comparison of the analysed positive and critical points.

The key part of the survey is the comment on the Committee's concluding observations, in which the attention is focused on the positive achievements, the Committee's concerns and the recommendations on the most frequent specific issues taken into consideration by the Committee and followed by an explanation of the Committee's approach to the issue addressed. The survey includes also an executive summary focusing on the analysis of the Committee's concluding observations and underlining the most frequent positive achievements and recommendations for each area analysed, following the structure of the Concluding observations. Finally, the survey contains also a number of relevant annexed documents, in particular it is important to mention the Concluding observations addressed to the 25 EU Member Countries and 4 Accession /Candidate Countries divided by each issue analysed by the Committee and the General Comments of the Committee that are fundamental to understand the interpretation given by the Committee of the concepts and principles contained in the CRC.

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Back THE CHILD'S RIGHT TO EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND CARE - SURVEY ON THE CRC COMMITTEE'S CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS ON THE LAST EU COUNTRIES' REPORTS

On the occasion of its Semester of EU Presidency (from 1 July to 31 December 2006), the Finnish government decided to hold a L'Europe de l'Enfance meeting on the 21st of November 2006 in Helsinki. For this event, the Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health commissioned the ChildONEurope Secretariat a survey on The Child's Right to Early Childhood Education and Care in the CRC Committee's Concluding Observations on the last EU countries reports. The survey highlights that indications on early childhood education and care can be find in the CRC Committee in the Concluding Observations (CO) addressed to the EU Member Countries and EU Accession /Candidate Countries, as well as in the Committee documents (General Comments in particular n. 7 on implementing child rights in early childhood and Days of General Discussion).

The aims of the survey were triple. It wanted to identify the issues most frequently examined by the CRC Committee, to identify the points of strength and weakness in the EU Countries CRC implementation, and to point out the issues on which EU Countries can improve their policies of intervention.

The survey pointed out that the CRC Committee most relevant indications on early childhood care and education are the following: a definition of early childhood as all young children at birth and throughout infancy, during the preschool years, as well as during the transition to school (below 8 years); States parties are urged to adopt comprehensive and coordinated plans and services for early childhood within a rights-based framework; an increase in human and financial resource allocations is required; where services are provided by the private sector, the States have an obligation to monitor the quality of provision; where services are decentralized, this should not be to the disadvantage of young children; work with young children should be properly paid and valued; systematic child rights training for children, parents and professionals should be realised.

In general, the survey concluded that until now, the CRC Committee's CO concerning specifically early childhood education and care aren't frequent because the Committee has normally included them in the general CO regarding education and care. Only in few cases and for those rights that have a more specific relevance for young children (i.e. right to identity) the Committee has given a specific attention. With the adoption of the General Comment n.7 dedicated to implementing child rights in early childhood, the Committee's CO started to focus more specifically on the category of children from 0 to 8 years old. The focus on the questions treated by the Committee in early childhood education and care services, are fundamental to help Governments in the future the preparation of their national reports.

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Back SEMINAR UNACCOMPANIED FOREIGN CHILDREN

The Seminar on "Unaccompanied Foreign Children: best practices on national policies and programmes on welcome, integration and family reunification" was organised by the Secretariat of the European Network of National Observatories on Childhood, ChildONEurope and was held on 4 December 2003 in Florence at the Istituto degli Innocenti. Its aim was to analyse and compare the laws, policies, programmes and data on unaccompanied foreign children seeking and not seeking asylum in the countries of the European Union.

The participants included experts and representatives of Ministries competent for childhood as of international governmental (i.e. Unicef, International Organization for Migrations) and non governmental (i.e. Separated Children in Europe Programme, Save the Children) organisations.
The Seminar was articulated in different faces which have covered various areas and issues/themes. Terry Smith, Advisor of the Separated Children in Europe Programme (SCEP) who made a comparison of national laws and policies of EU countries, focus on the definition of unaccompanied children, that is one of the most important and much debated problem, depending like the laws and the interventions addressed to this subject, on the perspective taken by the States to deal with the phenomenon and also on the consideration of these children as asylum seekers or not. Teresa Albano, International Organisation of Migrations, who considered the national laws and the policies of UE countries on trafficked unaccompanied foreign children.

During the first session of the Seminar the Bruno Ulmer's video on unaccompanied foreign children in France was presented by " Casa-Marseille-Inch'Allah".
After these three presentation the Seminar went on with the contribution of some of ChildONEurope Members (Belgium, France, Denmark, Ireland, Portugal and Spain) on best practices on welcome, integration and family reunification. These themes were object of the three working groups that started in the Second Session of the Seminar.

The statistical data collected were very significant, even if not complete exhaustive, and permit the first general overview of the problem in EU countries. Two important thinks emerged from the analyse of the data: the first one is that the problem of unaccompanied foreign children involved not only the Southern Europe States, but also the Northern ones. The second is that in Europe there are 30.000 unaccompanied foreign children and it's now necessary to consider the problem both in national than in European level.

The documents, the information collected by ChildONEurope Members and Observers, some of speeches, the results of the three working groups and the bibliography prepared by the Biblioteca Innocenti Library are on the ChildONEurope web site and in a CD Rom which was prepared by the Secretariat after the Seminar itself.

Seminar documents and annexed documents

Back SEMINAR ON CHILD PARTICIPATION

The Seminar "Towards a culture of child participation", dedicated to the child participation in daily life, was organised by the ChildONEurope Working Group on child participation and by the ChildONEurope Secretariat and was held in Florence the 31 of January 2008 at the Istituto degli Innocenti. In the present section you will find the Seminar programme, the Communications selected, the speeches, the international legislation and the most relevant documents collected and distributed during the ChildONEurope Seminar.

At the Seminar participated many representatives inter alias from Ministries, International Governmental and Non-governmental Organisations and Universities (around 100 peoples) and also two young girls from a Eurochild project in Cyprus.

The Seminar was structured partially in plenary and partially with working groups.
The plenary comprised the first, the third and the fourth session.
A first one was dedicated to introduce the issues dealt with by the seminar, in particular to the vision of the participation of children today in Europe and to 4 speeches aiming at giving a panorama of experiences on child participation in daily life selected by the ChildONEurope Working Group among around 40 communication presented.

A second session was organised in working groups focused on the child participation in the following contexts:

• a. family;
• b. school;
• c. culture, leisure, sport and local community life.

A third session was focused on the practice of participation of children today in Europe and on the vision of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on the participation of children (art. 12 of the Convention and others), on the basis of the comparative study on the final observations of the Committee vis-à-vis the last reports of the EU Member States.
The last session was aimed at a closing intervention focused on the synthesis of the working groups followed by a debate and on a closing reflection on next steps of the ChildONEurope network on the issue.

We hope that this space created in the ChildONEurope web site will be a useful instrument for the knowledge and the exchange of information on the topic of child participation, and we ask you to send us (e-mail: childoneurope@minori.org) other material considered useful to share with us and with the people interested to this topic.

Seminar documents and annexed documents