specific needs of children and elderly left behind as a ... - IOM Moldova

CHAPTER I
come back home: “She didn’t come, I don’t know why” and the hopeful wait:
“I’ve waited for her at the station but she didn’t show up…” (III_C_10).
More and more often the separations and/or divorces happen as a consequence
of migration. This fact is alarming if it is correlated to the aim
migration has: to ensure the family well-being. Children left behind are
exposed to a double risk: to live without parents while they are abroad; and
to face the divorce of their parents at a later stage. The experiences told by
the children are shocking, and the assessment of the risks for their moral
state leads to an awareness of the gravity of the situation.
The elderly
• Family and generation changes
Every family represents a micro-society with its own mentality, attitudes and
specific patterns, its own structure and pace of development, and the way of
interacting with each other. The phenomenon of labour migration brings
changes at this level of human interaction. It distorts the traditional model
of a family. The elderly cannot fully enjoy their life without being involved
in their children’s life and being continuously worried for them: “When she
comes home she always brings us presents, but she never asks me whether I
need money... I don’t want to interfere with their life, I don’t want to ask them
too much..., but if she sees that there is something that I need she should help
me... She has to think that I’m her mother and I need her to buy me things... I
don’t want to force them; I don’t want to use them...” (III_E_11).
Children, in turn, do not see the point in the advice and experience of an
older person. Consequently, the abandonment of an elderly person by the
children who left to work abroad is a frequently recorded phenomenon: “She
has been gone for 3 years, she brought me here even if I didn’t want to but she
told me “I’ll have to take you to a shelter” and I’m alone now, she brought me
here and I haven’t seen her since then...” (FG_E_3_urban_asylum). Neglecting
the elderly is mostly conditioned by the necessity of going abroad as
well as by the irresponsibility: “It would be good if she came to see us – we are
her parents” (FG_E_4_rural_asylum). Long-lasting physical distance leads
to emotional estrangement. This phenomenon is often experienced by the
institutionalized elderly. At the same time, it is worth mentioning the experience
of an elderly person who purchased a cheap cell phone with the
saved money hoping to reduce the distance with his relatives. In this way he
wanted to express his right to communication: “...They call me sometimes, I
also have a cell phone and I can call them too...” (FG_E_4_rural_asylum).
In this situation, the elderly person no longer finds his place in the traditional
family pattern, even with the necessary adaptations to contemporary
life. The obstacles and frustrations caused by the need to migrate may
also provoke violent behaviour towards the elderly.
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