An abandoned child becomes a vulnerable human being, exposed to physical, cognitive, psychological, affective, emotional and socio-relational cumulative risks, where the malaise symptoms and the behavioral effects (rejection, resistance to relationships, aggressiveness, lack of self-esteem, etc.) get worse and worse as time goes by, until the child decides to break away from any form of trust and availability towards other people and adults, forever.

Infancy is a temporary age and condition: the child needs stable and secure affective relationships; therefore he cannot be exposed to a lack of these things for years or to affective relationships which continuously change (traumatic breakup of the relationship with the biological family, constant turnover of educators, repeated transfers from one foster family to another). For to these reasons, we must intervene promptly as a basic step, reducing to the minimum the number of institutional care occasions and periods of stay outside the family, finding personalized family-type solutions which can be definitive. The trauma and the previous experiences of abandonment deeply influence the psychological and behavioral situation of the minor: the lack or removal of origins (because unknown or painful), the lack of emotional and affective relationships, the loss of the filial dimension and relationship, the sense of being a foundling (of dereliction?), the lack of self-esteem and the sense of personal guilty, despair, violence and aggressiveness in interpersonal relationships, and so on… these are all factors that have an impact on the development and construction of the self and personal identity.

Abandonment is a current state of need in the individual child, and at the same time, a condition of potential vulnerability, an abyss where other deviant phenomena of exploitation, abuse and juvenile violence can find a source and increase. Where the very first protection fence and educational care are missing (the family or an enlarged family community), it is easier, in fact, for the child to be exposed to several forms of exploitation and violence (such as trading and sexual trafficking or commercial adoption, social exclusion and the deviance of care leavers, the recruiting for criminal or paramilitary activities, etc.).

In most cases, current childhood protection systems have shown their ineffectiveness in containing the phenomenon. As recognized by international reports (UNICEF, MONEE, World Bank reports, etc.), despite the reform process started in the last decade in many countries, the numbers and risk conditions are increasing, while resources for interventions are decreasing (reduction of welfare expense, incapability to manage the transition towards a different model of Child Welfare System outside institutions, based on family fostering). Considering the complexity of this phenomenon, we are recording the incapability or poor will to control it:

-     large ‘submerged’ realities (the so called ‘ghost institutes’) are out of the control and supervision of public authorities;

-     some laws and bureaucratic delays often influence the application of the supreme interest of the child, creating an advantage for a social and legislative system based on adults only (which protects the parents more than the children);

-     the lack of a precise system of enrolment (general personal data register, databanks). especially in the south of the world, allows many minors to remain ‘without an identity’, and thus to leave them in a Limbo situation from a legal point of view, without a project of family life and reconstruction of an own filial identity.

 

4. A cultural emergency

Abandonment is given little consideration both at political and media level, and is felt less than other forms of juvenile malaise. Why? Here are some hypotheses:

-     First of all, the fact that we are historically used to this phenomenon significantly decreases our perception threshold and attention towards the problem;

-     Secondarily, the widespread opinion that an institutionalized child has already been taken in care by the public welfare system and thus – besides some occasional deplorable cases – benefits from the protection and security of his fundamental rights (nutritional, health, educational, etc.);

-     In the third place, the progressive de-legitimization of the family, at a cultural level (weaker family ties, increasing incidence of separations and divorces, etc.) and at institutional level: even if in different forms, the public service – today as well as in the past – runs the risk in many cases of abusing its own authority in protecting and taking care of minors (paternalistic perception of the State), actually depriving the family of its potentiality and educational responsibilities (perceiving it not as a resource, but more and more as a problem);

-       In the fourth place, within the family relationships, children’s rights seem, in many cases, to be in conflict with those of adults, and in most of such cases children are the losers. This is an insidious consequence of an adult-centered culture where the adult’s right is stronger than the child’s.