CHILD PROTECTION POLICY

The Romanian Midwives Association was founded in 1995 with the mission to ensure universal access to high-quality maternal and reproductive healthcare, empower midwives as autonomous healthcare professionals, and advocate for policies that uphold women’s rights. Through professional training, policy reform and community-based initiatives, the association works to create a healthcare system where midwives play a central role in providing safe, ethical and evidence-based care to all women.

Our organization is doing all it can to prevent harm to children so these are the policies that we follow to protect children.

Child safeguarding is the main responsibility of our organization to make sure our staff, operations and programs do no harm children, that we do not expose children to the risk of harm and abuse, and that any concerns our organization has about children’s safety within the communities in which we work are reported to the appropriate authorities. “Do no harm” is a principle that has always been used in our organization in all our years of activity.

The following forms of abuse are contrary to the principles of our Association and we are fighting to combat them:

Physical abuse: actual or potential physical harm perpetrated by another person, adult or child. It may involve hitting, shaking, poisoning, drowning and burning. Physical harm may also be caused when a parent or carer fabricates the symptoms of, or deliberately induces illness in a child.

Sexual abuse: forcing or enticing a child to take part in sexual activities that he or she does not fully understand and has little choice in consenting to. This may include, but is not limited to, rape, oral sex, penetration or non-penetrative acts, such as masturbation, kissing, rubbing and touching. It may also include involving children in looking at or producing sexual images, watching sexual activities and encouraging children to behave in sexually inappropriate ways.

Child sexual exploitation: a form of sexual abuse that involves children being engaged in any sexual activity in exchange for money, gifts, food, accommodation, affection, status or anything else that they or their family need. It usually involves a child being manipulated or coerced, which may involve befriending children, gaining their trust and subjecting them to drugs and alcohol. The abusive relationship between victim and perpetrator involves an imbalance of power where the victim’s options are limited. It is a form of abuse that can be misunderstood by children and adults as consensual. Child sexual exploitation manifests in different ways. It can involve an older perpetrator exercising financial, emotional or physical control over a young person. It can involve peers manipulating or forcing victims into sexual activity, sometimes within gangs and in gang-affected neighborhoods.

It may also involve opportunistic or organized networks of perpetrators who profit financially from trafficking young victims between different locations to engage in sexual activity with multiple men.

Neglect and negligent treatment: allowing for context, resources and circumstances, neglect and negligent treatment refers to a persistent failure to meet a child’s basic physical and/or psychological needs, which is likely to result in serious impairment of a child’s healthy physical, spiritual, moral and mental development. It includes the failure to properly supervise and protect children from harm and provide for nutrition, shelter and safe living/working conditions. It may also involve maternal neglect during pregnancy as a result of drug or alcohol misuse and the neglect and ill treatment of a disabled child.

Emotional abuse: persistent emotional maltreatment that impacts on a child’s emotional development. Emotionally abusive acts include restriction of movement, degrading, humiliating, bullying (including cyber bullying), and threatening, scaring, discriminating, ridiculing or other non-physical forms of hostile or rejecting treatment.

Commercial exploitation: exploiting a child in work or other activities for the benefit of others and to the detriment of the child’s physical or mental health, education, moral or social-emotional development. It includes, but is not limited to, child labor.

All projects and programs of our organization are designed to minimize the risk of harm to the children we come into contact with or impact upon directly or indirectly by taking sufficient account of child safety, whatever the focus of the work is. Our organization is adopting an approach that includes risk assessing of all proposed programs, adapting programs so they are safer for children.

The  Romanian Midwives Association is striving for a society that respects the rights of children. This Child Protection Policy is developed to ensure the highest standards of professional behavior and personal practice to ensure no harm occurs in any situation to children and adolescents during our activities, projects and social programs.

The Romanian Midwives Association will ensure that all our members, staff, interns, volunteers, consultants, partners  etc. are informed about this policy and act under all its provisions, and do no harm to the children who may come into contact within or outside our work.

If you have any questions about this Child Protection Policy, please contact the Romanian Midwives Association at asociatiamoaselor@gmail.com, and our team will get back to you as soon as possible.

The present Policy was updated on 04 March 2025.

ANNEX 1

Declaration of commitment to the Child Protection Policy of the Romanian Midwives Association

I, the undersigned ________________________________________________, have read and understood the standards and guidelines outlined in this Child Protection Policy. I agree with the principles contained in this Policy and accept the importance of implementing and promoting the child protection policies, procedures and practices contained in this document while working with or being associated with the Romanian Midwives Association.

________________________________________________(Name) ________________________________________________(Position/Role) ________________________________________________(Signature) ________________________________________________ (Date)