Galery

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The young mother timidly enters the office of the prosecutor for minors in Athens and squeezes a little boy in her arms. The woman stares at the floor and barely audibly whispers:

- Mr. Prosecutor, take my child and place him in a social home. I cannot even buy him milk!

Similar pictures of abject poverty have often been seen in recent months in the prosecutor’s office for minors in Athens, where parents who have long passed the limits of poverty and despair, are forced to resort to the prosecutor hoping to find shelter and food for their children even in an orphanage, because they themselves can no longer care for them.

Most parents, who go there to leave their children in such institutions, ask the prosecutor to take their children temporarily and not give them up for adoption, so that when they emerge from the poverty web and get back on their feet, they can take them back.

Whenever such a desperate parent comes to the prosecutor’s office for minors with the same request, prosecutors Ilias Zagoreou and Eftichia Stathoulopoulou start the real battle, which always has the same goal - to help parents not to part with their children.

Even prosecutors cry

This happened in the case of a 30-year-old mother from Petroupoli who made even the prosecutors cry when she turned to them with her truly tragic situation - she wants to leave her little 2.5 year-old boy in the prosecutor’s office because she cannot take care of him anymore.

The woman asked the prosecutor to put her child in a social home in order for him to not die of hunger and cold because she could no longer pay her rent, and they had also cut off her electricity.

She also went to the Archbishop, as she herself says, who gave her money out of his own pocket.

The smile of the boy, who she was holding in her arms, and the desperate situation in which mother and son found themselves, made prosecutors and their staff raise funds and give her money in order to be able to pay her rent.

Subsequently, the prosecutor turned to various municipal and parish offices asking them to provide her and the child with food, clothing and to support them by any means.

In this case, the prosecutor's efforts produced results, since ultimately the child remained with his mother.

Shocking testimony

"Take care of our children while we are in prison for not paying our debts”

Some cases, such as the following are special.

Mary had four people to feed. She is a widow from the southern part of Attica, who came one morning, to the prosecutor’s office for minors. Accompanying her was her 19-year-old son, a serious, silent and sad boy.

Mother and son sitting modestly in the office of the prosecutor went straight to the heart of the matter and asked  the prosecutor to send the two younger children in the family, aged 7 and 9, to a social home.

"I have been unemployed for a very long time, said the woman. My eldest son too. We cannot cover our costs, not even for our food. For a short while, until I find a job, please find my younger children a home. Please Mr. Prosecutor, do not give them up for adoption. Ensure that they will stay there until we find a way to get them back home."

In this case as well, the prosecutors managed to help the family and did not make a file, as happens when the state takes children from their families. The family is being upported by the social services of the municipality and the parish provides them food.

Nobly

Even more touching was the story told in the prosecutor's office of the District Court in Athens, and the protagonist was a couple, who had a small trading company in an Athens neighborhood. Their debts wiped out the company and uncovered cheques brought the owners convictions. The prosecutor for minors one day saw before him two young people dressed decently.

"We will go to prison because of our debts," said the woman to the prosecutor, who in the beginning thought that the people had entered the wrong office. But the young family had become victims of the economic crisis and had been forced to turn to the prosecutor asking for their two children to be placed in a social home.

"In order for them to survive, while we are in jail!" they said. In this case, the Justice showed real humanity, because a solution was found in record time.

The same day the prosecutor’s office requested the convictions issued against the couple. When they arrived they found that the limitation has passed, and there were no consequences.

As for the other convictions that led to prison, the prosecutor’s office for minors managed to delay their implementation, which was a favorable development for the parents who gained some time, and with it the hope to fight in order to be able to get back on their feet and save their family.

They find shelter in orphanages

Unfortunately, there was no such happy ending for two other cases with three minor children of foreign residents who were eventually placed in an orphanage. In the first case, a 40-year-old African man, a father of two sweet girls, 7 and 9 years old, sought to find shelter for them in a social institution; the children communicate with him almost every day, and he visits them often.

In the second case a 17-year-old Pakistani, brought in to the prosecutor by a fellow adult, remains at the Children's Hospital, where some necessary medical tests are being carried out on infectious and communicable diseases, while trying to find an institution for juveniles, which he can move to.

More and more people knock on the door of the Children's SOS Villages