The European Union has to make the strongest possible representations to the Government of Belarus to remove the recent ban on children leaving that country to holiday and receive medical treatment in Ireland and other EU countries.
This was stated by Marian Harkin MEP, who will seek this week to have a resolution agreed by the ALDE Group in the European Parliament to have the ban removed. “The decision by the Government of Belarus has come as a devastating shock to the many Irish families who have built up such close personal relationships with individual children whose only respite from severe institutional regimes is the periods spent with host families aboard,” she said.
Anybody who witnessed the harrowing RTÉ documentary which showed children having medical operations without the use of anaesthetics could not but be moved to do everything possible to improve conditions for children in Belarus, she said. There was an urgent need to continue the arrangement through which operations on physically handicapped children could save them from spending their lives in mental asylums when they reach the age of 18 and this required strong political pressure to secure a removal of the ban on children travelling abroad, Marian Harkin said.
“I very much welcome the initiative being taken by Minister Michéal Martin in contacting the relevant authorities in Belarus but this is also an issue which the EU as a whole can influence and I will be doing my utmost in the coming weeks to ensure that every opportunity is taken at the plenary session in Strasbourg to place maximum pressure on the Belarus Government to relent and permit free movement of children to host families in Ireland and elsewhere,” she said.
