HOME ALONE IN ROMANIA

            My son left to save money to rebuild the house. Still despite the financial benefits of migtation for poor rural communities such as Peretu , one of the sadder side effects has been documented in a reported published last year by Soros Fundation. It found that around 17% of all junior high school - some 170.000 children - have one or both parents working abroad.
         "I miss my parents very much", says Catalina, a short girl with round face and a blond ponytail,"but I know that they went to Spain to make money for us, for our future. The last time I saw my mom two or three years ago, and my dad one year ago. But I talk to them on the phone once or twice a week. I talk to my mom about intimate things , ask her advice. My grandmother raised me, so she is like a mother to me, but she was young in different times so there are certain things I can't talk to her about." 
         Catalina, who dreams of becoming a lawyer, wants to be able to make different choices than were available to her parents."I want to be there for my family",she says. "I understand what my parents do, but..." she hangs her head.
       "These children usually encounter the same problems as children who lost their parents through divorce or death; loneliness, problems at school, psychological effects. There are things a parent can provide that a grandparent cannot; some of them just lose control over the children."
        Short- or medium-term effects , according to Gabriela Tonk, deputy chief of the National authority for child protection also include "a higher risk that the child will suffer emotional, psychical or sexual abuse. In extreme cases children are even recruited for prostitution or criminal network."
        "These children have to be monitored , so nothing tragic can happens."
        That's a lesson Romania has had to learn the hard way. A year ago, a series of newspaper reports about children committing suicide after their parents had gone to work aboard shocked the country. One of them was 12 year old Andreea Ciurea, who stayed behind with his brothers, aged 16 and 17 , when his mother left to work as a maid in Italy.Newpapers printed a note reading " I am sorry that we have to part in dispute...Sister keep going to school, Mom take care of the house for the world is bad... Please take care of my puppy."
        "My mother used to sing a song every night before I wnt to sleep. I used to sleep in one bed with my mother and my father, because we had no space." Now Stefan sleeps alone.