Every month by an abandoned baby in Kosovo

Abandoning children in Kosovo has marked a slight decline. Five babies have been abandoned in the first five months of this year. However, more work is required to be done in preventing this phenomenon.

At the Neonatology Clinic in Pristina, it is known that the reasons young mothers abandon their children from birth are grave social conditions and rejection of the child by the father, since their relationships are mostly out of wedlock.

While the most suitable places for infant abandon remain hospital facilities.

The director's duty to the Neonatology Clinic, Gevdet Gojnovci, has said that despite the decline that has been noted, the Neonatology Clinic continues to have a shortage of nurses, as baby care needs a lot of commitment and commitment.

For this six-month-old, I'm talking about the past five months, it's good luck that we have a falling number of abandoned babies compared to last year. The number so far is 5 babies who are in the Neonatology Clinic. 4 are social cases passing by the Department of Social Health, while one in co-operation with social workers has returned to the family and takes care of it”, Gojnovci said.

He stressed that the Neonatology Clinic provides 28 days for abandoned babies, who then come under the care of the Ministry of Labour and Social Management, on account of the social welfare department.

We take the “Informs into the delivery room or babies in the field, in the spaces where they are left and are found by a passinger. In this case the social worker, who is 24 hours in custody, is informed, and police and along with the police, we also do the necessary examinations in which we care for 28 days. We usually get information during the birth process, that he's an undesirable child, that Mom wants to abandon. Then the social worker is informed, received the statement that the mother wants or does not want her to abandon that baby”, Gojnovci said.

UNFPA leader in Kosovo Visar Mujko Nimani has raised her concerns over unwanted pregnancies.

Niman says that there are also teen pregnancies often lacking information.

Unfortunately, this is the result of unplanned or unwanted pregnancies. And usually such a pregnancy is due to a lack of information about reproductive health, family planning, contraception, and access to contraceptions, which these women are not after, and that is why it has come to an unwanted pregnancy. And as a result, we have either abortion or even a drop out of these”, Mujko-Niani said.

Klevis Vaferi, programme manager at the Network of Organisations dealing with Child Protection (KOMF), has spoken of problems presented in lack of financing for abandoned children.

According to her, the quality of services for these children goes parallel to investments. As he added that stable support also provides qualified staff.

The quality of those services goes parallel to investments. We've recently raised a problem of support from the ministry that's offered for shelters, which is not fair, because there's long-term disruptions, which have led to the closure of housing, because it's finished fund by the ministry, housing has been left without financial support, and in such conditions it has had to move children to another country, in another form of housing, which is unhealthy for children, which does not contribute to child mental health, child development... We have raised this issue at that time to appeal to the ministry not to interrupt funding for this shelter, because of course financial support sets out whether a service will be qualitative or not, Vaqar told Kosovas.

For Edona Hajrullahu by the ombudsman institution, abandoning children remains one of the most sensitive and important issues.

Hajrullahu said more needs to be done on the part of institutions to prevent such phenomena.

“We are aware of such a phenomenon. We've had different visits, but we haven't come up with a concrete report, it means with recommendations for institutions on how to address this phenomenon in an adequate way, but this fact is a huge concern for us as a state. More needs to be done, institutions must do more to offer a better life for those children who are abandoned”, Hajrullahu told Kosova Preris. .

Otherwise, last year's first six-month Ministry of Social Health has announced that six babies have been abandoned. While education and health promotion, information on reproductive health in particular, as well as access to contraception, remains some of the steps the state needs to take in avoiding infant dropout. /