Motion for a resolution | Doc. 14537 | 24 April 2018

Impact of labour migration on left-behind children

Signatories: Mr Viorel Riceard BADEA, Romania, EPP/CD ; Ms Tamar CHUGOSHVILI, Georgia, SOC ; Mr Titus CORLĂŢEAN, Romania, SOC ; Ms Edite ESTRELA, Portugal, SOC ; Mr Valeriu GHILETCHI, Republic of Moldova, EPP/CD ; Ms Alina Ștefania GORGHIU, Romania, EPP/CD ; Ms Gabriela HEINRICH, Germany, SOC ; Mr Marian LUPU, Republic of Moldova, SOC ; Mr Rónán MULLEN, Ireland, EPP/CD ; Mr Joseph O'REILLY, Ireland, EPP/CD ; Mr Aleksander POCIEJ, Poland, EPP/CD ; Mr Ion POPA, Romania, EPP/CD ; Mr Cezar Florin PREDA, Romania, EPP/CD ; Mr Frank SCHWABE, Germany, SOC ; Mr Corneliu ȘTEFAN, Romania, SOC ; Mr Davor Ivo STIER, Croatia, EPP/CD ; Mr Ionuț-Marian STROE, Romania, EPP/CD ; Mr Damien THIÉRY, Belgium, ALDE ; Mr Dimitri TSKITISHVILI, Georgia, SOC ; Ms Adriana Diana TUȘA, Romania, SOC ; Mr Egidijus VAREIKIS, Lithuania, EPP/CD ; Ms Ute VOGT, Germany, SOC

This motion has not been discussed in the Assembly and commits only those who have signed it.

It has become a growing phenomenon that people who are having jobs far from their homes are often compelled to accept this difficult situation in order to sustain their family. It concerns posted workers who are framed by the European Union, but also many other employees whose jobs are done in places that require to be far from their families for a long or repeated period of time.

This situation which refers primarily to countries of Eastern Europe is very worrying at society level, because these jobs are accepted at the cost of family life and children’s education. Many parents have to leave their children to their grandparents, to send them in boarding school or even sometimes to place them in an orphanage because of their employment contract.

Children are therefore deprived of their parents and vice versa and all of them suffer from a free market that treats workers as goods, movable anywhere in Europe with no regard for their family life.

The Parliamentary Assembly should look much closer to the situation of these children with a view to reaffirming that the economic market is at the service of human beings and not the contrary. All European citizens shall have a right to a family life and these children have the right to be raised by both their parents.

The Assembly should call the Council of Europe member States and the employers to adopt urgent and tangible measures meant to avoid such dramatic situations by establishing a national framework in this field.