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

Mechanisms for coping with difficult situations
- To sensitize migrant parents and their family members by conducting
activities that will make parents who intend to migrate abroad to
work assume the responsibility for their children;
- To develop communication channels for parents and their children
left behind;
- To conduct community and leisure-time activities (workshops, clubs
of interest, etc.) devoted to the psychosocial integration of children
left behind as a consequence of parents’ migration.
The elderly
• Legal
The situation of the elderly left behind by children-migrants requires clarification,
thus establishing concrete solutions. In this context interviewed
persons stated the need for:
- Empowering children by law to take care of their parents in difficulty:
“it would great if laws oblige children as most of them do not assume
the responsibility for their parents thus they should be obliged to a certain
extent to look after their parents”(FG_EE_urban_rural); “children should
open a bank account and save money so the elderly could withdraw the
interest on a monthly basis”; “cash benefits”; “money transfers, taxes”; “the
person who intends to leave abroad should sign a contract with the state”;
“when leaving the country they should have already appointed a person to
look after their mother or father” (FG_EE_urban);
- Implementing comprehensive strategies to encourage the return
and reintegration of Moldovan migrants “Let’s help children turn
back to their country. Let’s offer young citizens who work abroad, jobs
here, so that they could be with their parents” (III_EE_7);
- Depriving children who do not take care of their parents’ inheritance:
“although they were referred by children to the state to take care
of them, their entire property should also be inherited by the state” (FG_
EE_urban_rural);
- Obliging labour migrants to register their elderly parents with
competent authorities (community social worker);
- Applying new forms of social aid that will guarantee a decent living
for the elderly: “to develop different types of insurances in the future”
(FG_EE_urban);
- Improving the legal framework to make non-governmental and
volunteer organizations more active in providing social services
for disadvantaged people;
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