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

Psychological and social effects of migration
only to do my homework, but now I am the one who cleans the house, does
the dishes, I have to chop the firewood, to dig in the garden” (FG_C_3_rural).
All those “new duties” fill the children’s free time and they feel they lack
free time: “I had more free time before, but now I don’t. I would like to
have more free time” (FG_C_1_rural); ,,It’s more difficult, during the winter
as I have to make the fire and to do the laundry, it’s easier in summer because
you just take your laundry outside and it dries there, whiles in winter
is much more difficult because I have to dry it in the house… it’s very difficult”
(III_C_21).
The responsibilities are being differently assumed by children, depending
on the number of children that remained at home and the gender of
the migrant parent. If the father is abroad and there is an elder brother at
home, the father’s responsibilities pass to the elder son. One of the interviewed
girls told us: ,,I don’t feel the difference because my father is abroad
and I don’t have to do whatever he was doing, it’s more about my brother who
took over and just like any other girl I have to help my mother with everything
she does, cooking, cleaning, anything” (FG_C_1_urban).
Some children have little brothers and sisters and they have to take care of
them. The role of looking after and educating little children is the “new
responsibility” of elder children: “I had anyway the responsibility to look
after him taking him to and from the kindergarten and somehow participating
in his education. I mean it was a responsibility in a way” (FG_C_ 2_rural);
“Since my parents left, and they left long ago, my biggest responsibility is to help
my brother. He is in the first grade now and I have a lot of duties because he
is developing intellectually now and I have to show him the way, the right way
for life, to help him with his homework. When he was in the kindergarten he
was a good and hard-working child so it was easy for me, but it is just that I
always have the responsibility to ask him “Did you do your homework?”, “Did
you learn the poem?” (FG_C_3_rural); “Now that my mom is gone I have to
work more and I have to stay with my little sister. And since I began taking
care of her I cannot work because she wants me to continuously stay with her.
Sometimes her brother stays with her but he is harsher with her so she doesn’t
like staying with him” (III_C_6); “I have to take care of my sister. Everyday,
when she goes to school, I have to wake her up, to comb her hair” (III_C_28).
Another “new responsibility” that appeared in the children’s life after their
parents left abroad is money management and taking care of bills: “I have
to cook and to take care that all the bills are paid on time. Everything is around
the house: the animals, the poultry I have to take care of them, too. I also have
to look after my grandmother as she’s old and I have to help her” (III_C_28).
Some children deprived of parental care as a consequence of migration
list income increasing activities: poultry or prunes as “new responsibili-
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