Goal

Terre des hommes Romania, Terre des hommes Moldova and Terre des hommes Ukraine implement CASTLE together with Babeș-Bolyai-Cluj University (coordinator), Ukrainian Institute for Social Research after Oleksandr Yaremenko and the Academy of Economic Studies of Moldova.

CASTLE will support Moldova and Ukraine so that these countries will improve their protection system and knowledge about transnational families and the social and legal impact of labor migration.

A series of solution-oriented research will be conducted to better understand the (potentially negative) impact of migration policies and child protection dynamics in Moldova and Ukraine.

Legal frameworks and policies with an impact on migration in Moldova and Ukraine will be improved following empirical research

Transnational families and stakeholders are better informed about the reality and practical issues related to labor migration

Children left at home and their families in Moldova and Ukraine are given the confidence to contribute to legal reform and policies related to labor migration.

For the first time at Babes-Bolyai University (Cluj), a Research Center for the Study of Transnational Families will be created, and the knowledge will be translated into operational interventions, so we will combine trainings and awareness activities with direct actions.

There will be created:

• A course for local service providers from Moldova and Ukraine
• An online course for service providers in destination countries (Romania among them)
• An online course for transnational families that will be delivered to recipients from Moldova and Ukraine and for members of these families from destination countries (Romania and other countries involved in the project)

Context

Labor migration of Eastern European citizens to the European Union has increased considerably over the last 10 years, and families do not always migrate entirely. Many children are left with or without a single parent, and this is the phenomenon of transnational families. In Moldova, 21% of children have at least one parent gone, and in Ukraine 20,000 children are left in the country with only one parent. Thus, in the absence of parents, these children become even more vulnerable and face anxiety, depression or other health problems more than others or have antisocial behaviors. In addition, the Covid pandemic brought even more challenges into their lives. In this project, Romania is both the destination country and the country of origin of migrants for work. With almost 350,000 children left at home, it has the largest number in Europe in this category.