'Baby boxes' draw UN criticism

A program that allows mothers to deposit unwanted babies in a safe "box" faces criticism from the United Nations.

The UN Committee for Child Rights met in Geneva June 17 and concluded by urging for an end to the so-called baby-box project. It furthermore criticized the disproportionate number of Czech orphans that remain institutionalized.  

Experts have expressed surprise at some of the UN conclusions.

"I am sure the baby-box project is in line with the Convention of Child Rights in all its 54 articles, especially the one about the child's right to life - the central idea superior to all the remaining ones," said Ludvík Hess, director of the Statim Foundation for Abandoned Children, which helped launch the baby-box program in 2005.

Baby boxes are drop-off windows - also nicknamed a "cradle for life" - for unwanted babies and are intended as a last resort for desperate mothers. They are heated and equipped with an alarm to ensure transport to ambulance services and are mostly located on the grounds of or nearby hospitals. The program has saved some 50 lives since its introduction, according to experts, and is designed to prevent unwanted babies from ending up in dumpsters or public restrooms.

There are 44 baby boxes throughout the country, and Hess said he plans to double this number.

"The UN misunderstood the whole purpose of baby boxes; otherwise, it wouldn't say it goes against a child's right to life," Hess said. "Moreover, it is not a state-run project. The state did not invest a single crown in it. It is funded by donors."

The UN committee concluded that the state should "undertake all measures necessary to end the baby-box program as soon as possible, to expeditiously strengthen and promote alternatives, and to address the root causes that lead to the abandonment of infants, including provision of family planning as well as adequate counseling and social support for unplanned pregnancies."

"I don't understand the UN's criticism," said Zuzana Baudyšová, the head of Our Child Foundation. "I am glad that since the baby boxes began, 50 newborns who ended up there are alive, instead of otherwise dying violently."

Additionally, the UN recommended the establishment of an independent monitoring body to oversee children's rights.

While many activists agree with Hess, his opinions are hardly universal among childcare experts.

Jan Folda, the program director with SOS Children's Villages, a group that helps match children with adoptive of foster-care families, said, "Without a doubt, the state's support or at least tolerance of baby boxes breaches a child's right to know its parents."

"Despite the existence of developed social networks for families with newborns, parents can get in such desperate social conditions that they opt for placing a child into a baby box as the only possible solution," he added.

At present, state institutions have failed in helping to resolve these situations, Folda said.

The UN opinion is advisory, and there is no enforcement mechanism.

Hess said he planned to continue with the project, which has parallels in other European countries.  

Germany has some 80 baby boxes, Slovakia and Poland 16 each, and Italy eight. However, in the United Kingdom, baby boxes are illegal, and abandoning a child is considered a criminal offense.

In 1999, the United States introduced a safe-havens law or "Baby Moses law" to decriminalize leaving children at a safe place like fire stations or hospitals as opposed to leaving them deserted without supervision. The Baby Moses law is said to have saved more than 900 children since its initiation.

After the UN's criticism was publicized, an Internet poll showed support for baby boxes, with 19,000 voting in favor of the program, and 390 opposing it.

The UN also renewed its past criticisms of the disproportionate number of parentless Czech children who are institutionalized.

The Czech Republic has around 20,000 children in institutions, according to 2010 statistics from the Labor and Social Affairs Ministry. That adds up to one out of every 99 children being institutionalized as compared with one in 287 in France, one in 257 in Hungary and one in 137 in Poland.

Klára Jiřičná can be reached at
kjiricna@praguepost.com