“Leaving millions of children without parental care is a mass violation of human rights, and an unnecessary threat to the stability and prosperity of our countries. Targeted ad hoc measures are not enough to improve the situation. To maximise the benefits of labour migration, while eliminating its harmful consequences on children left behind, all countries need to acknowledge the scale of this phenomenon and the long-term damage it creates, and to put into place comprehensive approaches to labour migration, which are child-centred, human-rights based, gender-sensitive and socially and economically sustainable.” PACE report "Impact of labour migration on left-behind children" 2020
Pictures were taken by Lina Krivoshieva in the frame of the public discussion “Children left behind: between labour migration, institutional standards and extended family” on 12 December 2022 by the Ombudsman of Bulgaria Diana Kovacheva and ROMACT.