The Broadcasting Coordination Council (BCC) punished PRO TV Chisinau channel with a minimum fine (1,800 lei) for violating the legislation on the protection of children’s rights in a feature broadcast on August 10, IPN reports.

The BCC said the TV channel didn’t obey the deontological norms and revealed the child’s identity in the report “Held in the house by force. What happened to a girl from Coscodeni: Neighbors accuse her of theft”.

“Unfortunately, PRO TV channel, in this and other cases, thinks only about rating, not yet about the children’s destiny,” said the head of the Monitoring Division Dinu Ciocan, who is a member of the BCC.

The channel’s representative Radu Ciumac said that the deontological norms weren’t violated in that report as it was made at the insistence of the child’s mother and with her consent. The report’s aim was to protect the child from the angry neighbors who accused the girl of committing thefts.

The BCC members had yet another opinion, saying that the report in fact worsened the situation of the girl, who is from a socially deprived family and who is not protected by the competent state bodies.