Over 1000 children born by minor mothers are registered  anualy in R. Moldova, 70 of them having mothers under 15 years old. Withal, another 1000 young girls under 19 years old abort.

We have found Victoria in the kitchen, peeling potatoes. It was almost evening and she had to pick up her daughter from the kindergarden. She wanted to prepare „low borscht ”  before her fiancé returns from work, from the city. She learned to cook from her neighbors, as she had nothing to learn from her mother,  she says. 

„She was not taking care of us, the only thing she was worrying about of  was the wet.. the neighbors raised us… one day we would it in one family next day in another and so on…  some would take us for a day and would give us some money for food. My mother was a tailor, and  when she was getting the salary she was spending it all on alcohol, and we were left hungry at home. She was sending us to the cemetery to bring her bottles of wine… does it mean she educated us? , says Victoria, going on peeling potatoes.

„She was selling my sister for a bottle of wine”

Victoria is the third child in the family and was born when her mother was nineteen. She had an older brother and  a sister. She heard they retired to a monastery. Her sister was found dead last winter. She also gave birth being young ,to a boy, and left him at orphanage.  Now he should be around four, Victoria heard he would be adopted. „My mother abandoned all of us. She was selling my sister to men from the village for a bottle of wine. She would call guys, eat well, mackerel, sausage, but my sister would be left crying next door.  I was at the pension then. My sister was crying when telling me about it. Can you call her a mother?”

Victoria was taken to the pension when she was 10 years old. After the seventh grade her mother took her home. „She said it is hard for her and she doesn’t want to leave me there. I wanted to finish at least eight classes, but my mother didn’t want to let me go on.”

„Who would hire me with seven grades?”

After their father died and they moved to another village, Victoria was taking care of the birds, at a farm, and her sister of the pigs. In there she met the guy from who she got pregnant later. „He was supposed to leave with my sister, but she was hanging out with many guys and he didn’t like it and took me”, says the girl with a sad smile.

Even though she is not even eighteen, Victoria speaks about her childhood as a distant past.  „When I was a child I was thinking about education. That is how childhood is, but later.. who would hire me with seven grades? I would like to be even a waitress somewhere, or a chief assistant, to peel potatoes, but…”

Victoria caught the attention of  the authorities from the capital suburb when she was in the eight month of the pregnancy, with the first child. She was 15. She had a copy of her birth certificate from Ucraine and the certificate from the pension. This were all her documents. The authorities called an NGO, for them to support her while perfecting her documents.  The process  took about two years, and in March this year, Victoria finally got her identity card.

After she gave birth she lived for two years in a maternity center in the capital, and later she moved with the father of the child. They live in an old house, in conditions hard to imagine for her peers in the city. Her fiancé father lives with them. He likes to drink sometimes. Now she is pregnant with the second child.  „I didn’t know I was pregnant. Just now I started to feel his moves. I was vomiting but thinking I got a sick stomach… and the period was missing as I cached a cold”, she says smiling.  „I will not have the third one… That’s  it, enough.. I don’t want more, two are enough. If there is to be the second we will raise him. Nicoleta will have a brother.  Her father told her that her mother will buy a baby from the market and she was happy”. She laughs.

„Victoria is a victim of circumstances”

Social assistants think that in her story everything is complicated. „Victoria is a victim of circumstances. Without income, with no house, with no documents”, says Tatiana Codreanu, social assistant in Child, Community, Family Organisation (CCF Moldova), who supervised her and is still visiting her from time to time.  “In her conditions she was risking to be left without the child. But thinking she was 15 a child herself, we could not take one and leave the other in risc conditions.  That is why we chose the Maternity Center, giving Victoria a form of protection and help her learn parenting skills before full age”, says Tatiana Codreanu.

As she didn’t have a residence, Victoria could not benefit from allocations from the state. „She went back to this guy hoping she could get documents, to be a part of a community and beneficiate from support. She had a negligent mother. Back then the authorities should have lack her of  maternal rights, as she had a behavior of an abuser, and maybe the children would have had a brighter future ”, completed the specialist.

Under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, any person under 18 is considered a child. The lawyer  Violeta Gaşiţoi considers that the whole society is responsible for this young girl situation. „This girl was living in the society, where there is a mayor, social assistant, nighbours, and the fact she got into a mens arms is everybodies fault. If authorities want to integrate the children into the families, initially they must check the living conditions of that family, they must see if the mother has the possibility to maintain that child. More than that, a minor must go to school. If they saw that this young girl was not going to school, the director must have been informed. There should be a collaboration between institutions, otherwise we end up with alarming situations. In this case, the olders must be liable because they knew and tolerated this behavior. And the youngest must know that sexual relations with a minor under 18 can lead to criminal liability”, mentions the lawyer.

77 children born by mothers under 15 years old

In R.Moldova some data shows that from 1.000 women giving birth, 34 are under 19 years old. Although according to the National Bureau of Statistics the number of births by minors is decreasing, it remains alarming for contemporary life. So, last year, 77 children were born by mothers  under 15 years old, but 13 of  them had mothers under 14 years old. Usually this pregnant teen are from families with a low income and rural, from ethnic minority groups and marginalized groups that have limited access to sexual and reproductive health services.

„It is very important that every woman choose how many children to have and when to give birth”, says Ian McFarlane, director UNFPA in  R.Moldova  ( ONU Fond for Population). „It is important that women and young girls from R.Moldova have the opportunity to do it by choosing, not by any kind of  accident. It is important for every pregnancy to be wanted and in safety”. In the opinion of the specialist, a solution would be a better access to information, the young girls must know there rights, including the right to choose. On the other hand, there is a need in a societal behavioral change.

„I was surprised to see in a report that 50% of adolescents that had sexual experience didn’t know how to protect. I think this is a problem. It is important for the  quality services to be assured during reproductive period. For them to be courageous, to protect and not be ashamed to go to a pharmacy to buy condoms. For me buying a condom is the same as buying a toothpaste, both are for securing my health. The fact that the society sees in protected  sex a problem reveals a problem of the society in ensemble”, says ONU official.

A big problem remains the marginalization of this young girls, that already had suffered be by negligence, ignorance, despair or lack of responsibility of others. „We must offer all the assistance to this young mothers. To not blame them, as it is not there fault. To not marginalize them. And do so, that we do not end up with such situations ”, added  Ian McFarlane.

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