Part I
of proper regulations allowing minor mothers to live in social rehabilitation
establishments together with their children violates Articles 18, 47 and 71 2
of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland.
The Commissioner also pointed out that a minor mother staying in
a youth care centre has the right to take regular care of her child, even without having formal parental responsibility for it. This clearly arises from Article 96(2) of the Family and Guardianship Code75, and the regulations in
force do not prohibit minor mothers to stay in youth care centres with their
children on daily basis, provided that they take regular care of their children,
as referred to in the above mentioned provision of the act.
In her reply of 21 April 2016, the Secretary of State in the Ministry of
National Education76 pointed out that the issue of juvenile mothers covers
a wide range of legal, social and administrative aspects. However, the existing problem of juvenile mothers, placed in youth care centres pursuant to
family court decisions, is not of systemic nature. In the systemic dimension,
the possibility for juvenile mothers to stay in contact with their children and,
at the same time, to continue their social rehabilitation process has been ensured by the solution allowing to form specialized foster families under the
system of support to families and professional specialized foster families.
The Secretary of State also pointed out that given the specificity of the
existing solution and the scale of the problem, it seems there is no real need
to develop new systemic solutions. There is, however, the need to consistently implement the existing solution mentioned above, in order to meet the
social rehabilitation and family needs of juvenile mothers from youth care
centres, including the possibility to build ties with their children.
The Secretary of State emphasized, furthermore, that the legislator’s intention was not to allow the stay of infants, babies and toddlers with their juvenile mothers in youth care centres, but to make it possible for such mothers to take regular care of their children to the largest possible extent. In the
Secretary of State’s opinion, children of juvenile mothers should not live in
youth care centres on daily basis also because of the fact that they do not
offer on-site medical care, and that there may appear risks to the safety of
children in such centres.
The NMPT would like to emphasize that according to the data of the
Centre for Education Development, in 2014 youth care centres across the
Consolidated text: Dz. U. of 2017, item 682.
Reply of the Secretary of State of the Ministry of National Education of 21.04.2016, ref. no. DWKIWSPE.5014.12.2016.KT.
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