Foster care must factor in cultural identity, says EU
PR dla Zagranicy
Paweł Kononczuk
07.12.2018 15:16
EU justice ministers on Friday agreed that cultural identity should be taken into account when choosing foster families for children.
Image: OpenClipart-Vectors/pixabay.com/CC0 Creative Commons
The Polish government had been pressing for such an approach for years.
Poland's Deputy Justice Minister Łukasz Piebiak told journalists in Brussels on Friday: "Polish children have been placed in families and in an environment that is completely foreign, among people who do not speak Polish, who are of different religions.”
He added: “Foreign state authorities which made such decisions were completely unconcerned about the cultural context. This will now not be possible."
Hundreds of thousands of Poles, often with their children in tow, have flocked abroad in search of better-paid jobs since their country joined the EU in 2004.
The new guidelines are expected to come into play in cases such as when a court decides to temporarily allocate a child to a foster family after a conflict between the parents.
(pk/gs)
Source: PAP