ZAGREB, June 11, 2019 – Children’s ombudswoman Helenca Pirnat Dragičević called for providing support to children whose parents are behind the bars, and this appeal was issued on Tuesday on the occasion of the European campaign called “Not My Crime – Still My Sentence.”
The campaign is aimed at improving living conditions and status of children of incarcerated parents.
The Croatian office says that since 2006 it has been engaged in the protection of the rights of this vulnerable category of children, and notes some progress in their status in the country. Approximately one-third of incarcerated people in Croatia are parents of underage children.
On 31 December 2018, of the 2,211 persons behind the bars in Croatia, 743 were parents of a total of 1,325 underage children. Throughout that year, about 12,500 children were separated from their imprisoned parent.
“An estimated 2.1 million children are separated from a parent in prison in Council of Europe countries on any given day; 800,000 children in the EU-28. In addition to having to cope with separation from their parent, these children are vulnerable to stigma, instability, poverty and violence. Although overall progress on the issue of parental imprisonment has been made in Europe, thanks partially to EU support for advocacy on their behalf, some countries still have little awareness of this, levels of service provision vary greatly and policy is lagging,” says COPE, the only pan-European network for children with imprisoned parents.
“Founded in 2000, Children of Prisoners Europe (COPE) is a pan-European network working with and on behalf of children with imprisoned parents. The network encourages innovative perspectives and practice to ensure that the rights of children with imprisoned parents are fully respected and that action is taken to secure their well-being and healthy development. COPE is a membership-based organisation made up of non-governmental organisations, individuals and other stakeholders across Europe and beyond, linked by a staff team based at its Paris headquarters.”
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