“All of our concerns at this time are focused on the teenage girl, her health and safety, who is currently in the care of the appropriate specialists. At the same time, all the necessary actions are in progress by the police and the prosecutor’s office,” she said Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, Domna Michailidouin her statements to journalists about her case 14 years old who resides in a hospitality structure in the area of ​​Nea Smyrni.

In more detail, Mrs. Michailidou also stated the following:

“By order of the prosecutor, she had very recently been removed from her abusive family and this girl was placed in a child protection unit. From the first moment, in the child protection unit we were informed that he received appropriate help from child protection specialists, such as a social worker, a psychologist and a child psychiatrist. In these cases, however, it takes time for a child to be helpedto escape from his past and find his own inner balance.

From the beginning, the structure had informed the police and the prosecutor’s office about the particular risks inherent in this particular girl.

And indeed, the arrest of the three perpetrators was made possible, thanks to the immediate actions of the social worker and the unit’s child protection officeran institution that did not exist and we created it in the last two years.

The workers at the structure did not hide the problem, they immediately notified the police and gathered all the necessary information, so that the police in turn could carry out their work, as they did.

For four years now, we have made deinstitutionalization our flag. And this, because we know all the dangers for children who are abused or neglected. I remind you that children in structures have parents. But they are either abused or neglected and, by prosecutorial orders, removed from their biological families. So they suddenly find themselves in an institution. As I have said before, no matter how good an institution is, it is not a family.

That’s why we’re emphasizing deinstitutionalization, that’s why we’ve managed to get half the kids out of institutions, and that’s why we’re so rigid and insisting on rules and standards in institutions. No matter how well staffed the institutions are, because this particular institution is more staffed than it has been in the last 15 years, no matter how well they are structurally, major structural changes have been made in this particular institution, even though there is now a child care manager protection in all institutions, one family is the issue. That’s why we’re asking for everyone’s help.”