The Child Protection Index (the Index) is a comparative policy tool, organised and implemented by local and national level civil society organisations, that examines a country’s current child protection system using a common set of 626 indicators that measure a country’s policy and actions toward greater child protection. The index evaluates each national government’s actions through the lenses of policy, service delivery, capacity, accountability and coordination. The index does not measure the wellbeing of children in each country directly, instead, focusing on policies, investments, and services that impact children’s wellbeing.
This Index measures Moldova’s efforts toward child protection in comparison with other countries in the region. Moldova’s average score was calculated for three of the four sources of indicators: (1) Current Child Protection Status of Girls and Boys, (2) Governance Environment, and (3) Social Work. This Index includes an analysis of Moldova’s child protection system across these three indicators as well as recommendations related to each.
Results from the Index indicate that Moldova ranks fourth out of the five pilot countries: Bulgaria, Georgia, Moldova, Romania, and Serbia and takes the last position of the five pilot countries in child protection status of girls and boys. However, the Index also finds that Moldova hosts a higher percentage of children in kinship or guardianship care out of the total number of children separated from their families than the other pilot countries. Moldova also has higher percentages of domestic adoptions for children with disabilities. Despite these positive results, Moldova does have a high percentage of children separated from their families and a low number of qualified social workers per 100,000 people of the general population.
