The Public Defender of Georgia has addressed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to support the UN General Assembly’s resolution on children without parental care and children at risk of being abandoned.

The EU member states submitted a resolution on children without parental care and at risk of being abandoned to the UN General Assembly and advocated its consideration by 2019.

The Public Defender of Georgia believes that it is important Georgia, through its own representation in the United Nations, to support the initiative of the EU member states, which envisages adding the above-mentioned issue to the agenda of the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly in 2019 and the above-mentioned resolution to be adopted by the Assembly.

Adoption of the resolution on the protection of children without parental care, as well as support for its effective enforcement, is of vital importance for the protection of and assistance to the children at risk of being abandoned, since the majority of states face the common problem of child abandonment; However, the UN member states have rarely taken adequate and timely measures collectively for the well-being of children without parental care.

Children are often subjected to economic and social hardship and suffer from marginalization. The children, who were separated from their parents due to poverty, conflicts or disabilities, mainly live on the street or large institutions. As a rule, they remain beyond the statistics and global development plans. Similar situation is in Georgia, where the number of children without care is still high.

Consequently, the Public Defender considers that it is of urgent necessity to improve the state of children without parental care at the national level, for which it is vitally important to adopt the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly on the protection of children deprived of parental care or who are at risk of being so.