Belonging to someone
Why are there so many children institutionalized and so few being harbored by families? Institutionalization seriously impairs a child´s possibility of becoming a viable adult - that is the consensus in the scientific community. It is also more expensive for the State. From the 8500 kids kept by the State only 300 are received by families. Despite the law and international warnings the family shelter program is suspended, there are no vacancies and no plans to create them in the short term. In Scandinavia the rate of children hosted in families is around 90 percent. In the southern countries things are delayed: Spain gives family shelter to 60 percent of the minors, Italy to 50 percent, and Portugal to only 4 percent. And a great part of that portugueses rate is due to Mundos de Vida Association, where the children that are withdrawn from their own families are rerouted to other families who can really accompany them. Stories of the recovery that the country is not doing. Ricardo J. Rodrigues.