Euro-orphans or nobody's children - the door open to exclusion

‘Eurpo- orphans’ are defined as children whose parents have emigrated due to economical reasons and left their children behind. Some are cared by grandparents, siblings, other relatives, neighbours or left by themselves. At present, the social policy does not employ a term ‘euro-orphan’, and accordingly there is no social policy intervention towards this group of children. According to estimates, in Latvia, in 2011 there are about 8000 euro-orphans, which is more than the number of children officially defined as orphans or social orphans.

The paper is based on a study of Euro-orphans in Latvia based on document analyses, expert interviews and interviews, and use of art project.  

The paper analyses various age groups of euro-orphans – younger school age (7-10), preadolescents (11-13) and teenagers. The younger children seem to find it easier to accept the absence of parents. Pre-adolescents and teenagers suffer the most. It exhibits in various ways – and the most visible are poor success at school, might fall into a bad company, using alcohol and drugs and starting criminal activities. Invisible harm is depressive mood, living a fragmented life ‘from call to call’ or from ‘visit to visit’ or ‘when leaving my home country and start new life’.

The author will describe different models of substitute parenting and the role of various agents that decreases the risk of social exclusion of those children.