EU Ambassador Lars-Gunnar Wigemark and Heads of Missions in Bosnia and Herzegovina today endorsed the “Every Child Needs a Family” public campaign aiming to raise awareness of the position of children without parental care and children with disabilities in the residential care. The campaign is implemented by UNICEF in BiH, as part of the EU-funded project “Transformation of Care Institutions and Prevention of Family Separation”.

Majority of children in residential care in BiH are not orphans. Their parents might be poor, socially excluded or unable to provide necessary treatment to children with disabilities. Appropriate support would ensure that most families care for their children, or that an adequate foster or other community-based care is in place.

Campaign calls on decision makers to adopt the appropriate legislation to secure adequate support to families with children and social protection services. It also underlines the fact that the institutionalisation is more expensive than foster care, as well as harmful and detrimental for physical, hormonal, emotional and intellectual development of any child.

Protection and promotion of the rights of the child is one of the objectives of the European Union. EU in Bosnia and Herzegovina is assisting authorities in their efforts of ensuring an equal access to rights and services to all the citizens, including children.

Having a family is not a privilege, it is a right.