Save the Children Romania urges incoming government to address problems impacting children

The NGO Save the Children Romania issued a public letter urging the new government, as well as parliamentary parties, to urgently address the causes leading to severe disparities regarding equal and non-discriminatory access for children to health, education, and social protection services.

The letter is accompanied by a detailed analysis that outlines the state of children in Romania and includes a series of recommendations.

"The state of children in Romania continues to deteriorate, the main causes being severe poverty, which has dramatic repercussions on the real guarantee of rights to health, education, and safety for children in socio-economically vulnerable situations, as well as the absence of integrated public policies addressing both the social and educational support for these children,” said Gabriela Alexandrescu, Executive President of Save the Children Romania.

The organization points out that spending on education in Romania represents only 13.3% of GDP, compared to the EU average of 19.4%, despite the fact that the country has the highest proportion of children at risk of poverty or social exclusion in the European Union. The country also allocates only 4.9% of GDP to health, compared to the EU average of 7.6%. Moreover, in Romania, the early school dropout rate has reached 16.6% - the highest level in the last six years.

Romania also remains at the top of EU infant mortality rates, well above the EU average, with almost half of births to mothers under the age of 15 in Europe occurring in Romania (3,696 births to mothers under 15 years old between 2018 and 2022).

Over a quarter of Romania's population does not have medical insurance, and per capita health spending is less than half of the EU average (EUR 1,626 compared to EUR 3,684). This chronic underfunding is dramatically reflected in the system's capacity to meet children's basic needs. Other problems include drug and substance abuse, violence against children, online abuse, and others.

Major recommendations include the development and immediate implementation of a national system for early monitoring and intervention to identify and support students at risk of dropping out of school, with a special focus on socio-economic vulnerabilities.

Also recommended is the funding of remedial (after-school) education programs, the reform of the school curriculum focusing on relevant competencies for the labor market, the reevaluation of the structure and methodology of the national evaluation, the creation of a national system for monitoring children’s health, the redistribution of pediatricians and pediatric surgeons to deficient areas, the modernization of all maternity wards, the introduction of sexual and reproductive education, family planning in the school curriculum, regular training for teachers meant to recognize and address violent situations, counseling for parents, school nutrition, and more.