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Close to my heart is the Left Behind project which tackles that very subject and looks at migration in Europe, with a focus on Moldova, a country that in recent years may have seen as many as one million people leave to find work. The Migration creates what I call social orphans; children and young people who may only see their parents once or twice a year if they are lucky. This was the central focus of my work.
According to the Information and Documentation Center on Child Rights in Moldova, the number of children without parental care is growing steadily. In 2006, there were 94,000 children who had at least one emigrant parent, while in 2009, the number had reached 135,000.
A prime example is Moldova, which, by some current estimates, has lost about 7 hundred thousand migrants, though other astonishing estimates have put the figure at over 1 million, almost a quarter of the total population.
In economic terms, migrant remittance, or sending money home, helps to strengthen the financial inflow of a developing country, but it also increases the number of social orphans, children who might count themselves lucky to see their parents but once a year.
The plight of these children is difficult to imagine. Many will never overcome the psychological trauma caused by separation from their parents. Numerous cases of suicide do nothing but highlight how serious the situation is.
