'Strawberry orphans' driven to despair by their migrant mothers

FOR millions of Romanians, migration has been an economic lifeline. But for 12-year-old Stefan Ciurea, the thought of his mother leaving to work as a maid in Italy was worse than death: he hanged himself with a leather horsewhip from the branch of a cherry tree.

After taking one last photograph of himself with his mobile phone, Stefan, a quiet, diminutive boy who collected foreign coins and made toy swords out of scrap metal, posted a note to his chest.

"I'm sorry we are parting upset," the note said, referring to his pained efforts to stop his mother, Alexandrina, from migrating to Rome, part of an exodus of one-third of Romania's active work force. "You don't have to worry about my funeral because a man owes us money for timber. My sister, you should study hard. Mom, you should take care of yourself because the world is harsh. Please take care of my puppy."

Two years later, Alexandrina Ciurea, a 38-year-old single mother, is working as a cleaner in Rome, one of an estimated three million Romanians who have migrated westward over the past five years.

She says Stefan's suicide gave her a stomach ulcer. After his death, she waited a year before deciding to leave her two other teenage children behind.

But in the end, economics prevailed: she could earn about 540 a month cleaning houses in Italy, more than three times her wage as a seamstress in Romania.

"Stefan's death is the tragedy of my life," she says. "But I left because I was poor and couldn't feed my children. If I could, I would come back to Romania tomorrow."

Many in this poor Balkan country of 22 million dreamed of escaping during decades of dictatorship. The exodus of poor, rural Romanians began after the fall of Communism in 1989 and intensified two years ago when Romania joined the European Union. Spain, Italy and a handful of other countries softened immigration rules to attract less expensive workers from the east.

Diligent Romanians became the strawberry pickers, construction workers and house cleaners of choice.

But while migration has brought economic gains – migrants sent home nearly 7.2bn in remittances last year – it has also exacted a heavy toll on the country left behind.

The migration has ripped apart the social fabric, creating a generation of what some sociologists call the "strawberry orphans". An estimated 170,000 children have one or both parents working abroad, according to a recent study by the Soros Foundation.

The same study found that children with parents abroad were more likely to abuse alcohol and cigarettes, have problems with the police and under-perform in school. Conversely, some children who blame themselves for their parents' departures become straight-A students in the hope of luring them back.

Denisa Ionescu, a psychologist who works with the children of migrants, says they are at higher risk of depression, especially if it is the mother who left.

"In Romania, it is the mother who cares for the children," Ionescu says. "So when the mother leaves, the child's world falls apart."

Of the children left behind, 14 have committed suicide over the past three years, according to researchers with the Soros Foundation, but it is unclear if the rate is higher or lower than for all children in Romania.

But psychologists say the effects of migration have been especially acute because Romania is a largely rural country where close family ties underpin all aspects of life.

Gheorghe Ciurea, Stefan's 16-year-old half brother, says Stefan was a quiet, affable boy. But when he learned that his mother was leaving and he would be in the care of Stefan's hard-drinking father, who never married Stefan's mother, he locked himself in his room and refused to come out for days.

After the suicide, Stefan's father moved out. Now Gheorghe, whose own father is dead, lives alone in their cramped, messy house in this village about 105 miles north-west of Bucharest.

He says he dropped out of high school because he could not afford the tuition. He does odd construction jobs to scrape by. The house is freezing, and he wears a wool coat inside. To pass the time, he plays backgammon.

His 17-year-old sister, Alina, lives with her boyfriend. Being alone has forced him to learn to cook. He calls his mother every day. "I miss my mother," he says from Stefan's room. "At some point, she says, she will bring me to Italy so I can work in construction, but I am still waiting. I am still waiting."

Mihaela Stefanescu, who coordinated the study for the Soros Foundation, says the billions in remittances have helped to eradicate extreme poverty and empowered working mothers like Alexandrina Ciurea.

But many children of migrants have to live with grandparents, some of whom are not able to deal with the demands of rearing young children.

Divorce among migrants is rising, with sets of parents sometimes migrating to different countries. In extreme cases, children are abandoned or sent to orphanages, child advocates say. Some work as prostitutes or get involved with criminals.

An Emmy Award-winning documentary, Any Idea What Your Kid Is Doing Right Now?, shown on national television, featured a family of six children left with their blind father after the mother went to work as a maid in Germany.

She met another man and never returned. Soon, some of the children were forced to stop going to school and find work to survive.

Economists warn that the benefits of working abroad may prove short-lived, especially if the global economic downturn forces workers to return home to an economy that can no longer absorb them. Tens of thousands of Romanians are already out of jobs in Spain and Italy.

"The short-term economic gains of migration will not justify the long-term costs," says Radu Soviani, a leading economist. "It is a national tragedy."