Soroca Roma family raises 20 children in two-room flat

The Soroca local authorities say the Roma beget many children, but assume no responsibility to raise them. They are jobless and don't have means to keep the children. For instance a family raises 20 children in a two-room apartment, Info-Prim Neo learns from the Human Rights Center. All in all there 28 people living the same apartment. A woman is pregnant. The owner of the apartment is a mother of four and a grandmother of 20. She is the only in the family who has a job. She's a street sweeper and the money from her salary and social assistance hardly can afford feeding the family. Children's right ombudswoman Tamara Plamadeala says, in case it is proved the parents are not able to take care of the children, they must be deprived of their parental rights, as the children must be temporarily lodged with other families. “It's necessary that a specialist works both with the parents and the children, so that the latter ones should be later reintegrated into their biological families. The parents also must be penalized harsher for irresponsibility and must be impelled to work to feed their children in boarding schools,” the ombudswoman says. The Soroca local administration says it has no money to help them and urges the parents to seek jobs and assume responsibility for raising and educating the children.