Greek organizations seek overhaul of child protection system
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Organizations within the Network of Child Protection Organizations in Greece are calling for a complete restructuring of the country’s system for protecting vulnerable children, prompted by gaps revealed in a recent case involving an infant in Kypseli.
The network, which includes groups like Exeli̱xi Zōīs, Children’s Villages SOS, and Hamogelo tou Paidioú, held discussions with journalists to highlight long-standing deficiencies. Currently, Greece has only 545 permanent social workers serving 332 municipalities.
By comparison, the city of Madrid employs around 1,000 social workers. The organizations pointed to the lack of a unified and binding cooperation protocol between prosecutors, police, social services, schools, and healthcare providers as a major weakness. These groups also criticized the limited and primarily punitive role of the Juvenile Prosecutor’s Office, which lacks sufficient social worker support for effective case monitoring.
A concerning practice is the prolonged placement of children removed from their families in hospitals for months, rather than immediate placement in safe environments, around 100 children are currently in this situation nationwide, with 45 in the Attica region. The organizations also emphasized the need to protect the personal data of young victims during media coverage and proposed adopting practices from other European countries with more streamlined child protection models.
They advocate for a national ratio of social workers to population, one per 2,500 residents, which would require approximately 4,400 social workers across Greece.
