Campaign to end child institutions is coming home

AS I leave the European Parliament next month, there is one campaign I cannot walk away from. Instead I have decided to bring it home and I am appealing for people who will be willing to join me in carrying it on in Ireland.

The campaign is to end the institutionalisation of children (most commonly children with special needs and those from disadvantaged or minority backgrounds). It met with controversy in the European Parliament as the Bulgarian government and most Bulgarian MEPs vigorously opposed it.

Their counter-campaign within the political groups meant that few MEPs were willing to join or even sign the two written declarations calling for deinstitutionalisation. Irish families and charities which have been involved with orphanages in Romania, Belarus and other former Soviet states are already familiar with the issue.

But I think the Ryan report has brought home to everyone the suffering of children, and of the adults they become, from being abandoned in institutions and being left at the mercy of cruel and abusive people.

There are several active NGOs working for better conditions in the worst of these establishments and ultimately for an end to institutionalisation of children, and it was good to know that our parliamentary campaign had the effect of stimulating a public debate in Bulgaria.

I would welcome the support of anyone who is interested in helping with the effort to end the practice of institutionalisation of children and I would especially like to invite people who have personal experience of institutions in Ireland to help because it is they who know first-hand the suffering of neglect, cruelty, abuse, especially sexual abuse, that these children are living with right now.

I can be contacted at [e-mail].

Kathy Sinnott

Ballinabearna

Ballinhassig

Co Cork