One out of four Bulgarian children receives greetings for the International Children’s Day on Skype. The net gives the only chance for that and is also used for children’s upbringing. 26 percent of the students who are in grades 9 through 11 have one or two parents working abroad. The figures include people with temporary work abroad and those who reside and work there permanently. This is what a study by the Risk Monitor Foundation, financed by UNICEF, shows.

“We should not treat children with parents abroad as a group at risk,” says associate professor Petya Kabakchieva, one of the researchers in the project. “They are children like the rest but it is possible that children with their both parents abroad could face different problems. What are these problems? It is common for these children to have lower grades in school. Sometimes they drop out of school or have health issues. They drink and smoke more than their peers. I think the most worrying is that 40 percent of children with parents working abroad become "clients" of the Juvenile Delinquency Commission. Their actions are mostly related to the use of alcohol and marijuana. This happens because they are usually raised by relatives and there is lack of control. Most often their custody is not legally regulated and it becomes a problem when children require medical treatment or commit hooliganism. Grandparents, who most often take care of the children are not custodians in the legal sense and can not take responsibility in such cases. That is why there must be changes to the Family Code and introducing the notion of "temporary guardianship." The study showed that young children want to be cuddled. Grandparents try really hard but children have specific psychological problems. Hot lines that provide psychological help report that they frequently receive calls from children. That is why there must be psychologists present in schools. Specific consultative groups that are to work with children and departing parents should be also created."

Assoc. Prof. Petya Kabakchieva has also presented the results of another study of "Risk Monitor" and the Centre for Liberal Studies aimed at "mobile" children.

"These are three groups of children,” says Associate Professor Kabakchieva. “These are children who leave school in April and return in October, because they are traveling with their parents for seasonal summer jobs. The second group consists of children who go with their parents abroad, study there for some time and then return. The third group are those who go abroad to stay permanently and need some documents.”

According to Associate Professor Kabakchieva officials in Bulgarian education system apparently suffer from fetishism of documents because at least 7 different documents are required in order for a child to return to the Bulgarian classroom. For this reason children are enrolled in the lower grades, and that leads to demotivation. The study focused on two regions - Blagoevgrad and Shumen, where the families themselves decided to share the problems they face. Most often migrant workers go to Greece, Cyprus, the Netherlands and Spain. There are also those who migrate in winter to cut Christmas trees in Belgium and Spain, and so children miss the middle of the school year. According to Associate Professor Kabakchieva, the general knowledge of students should be tested when they return to school, as now the focus is primarily put on Bulgarian language, history and geography.

English: Alexander Markov