The Child Protection Centre (CPC) has made and published a report about the work of orphan’s courts in 2024. The report gives a closer look at what the orphan’s courts have done and what problems they faced in protecting children’s rights. The report includes numbers and facts, as well as a short analysis of the court decisions in different types of cases. It also shows trends and problems that affected children’s rights in 2024. The report is based on information from 42 orphan’s courts, which sent their official data to the CPC.
The report looks at several important topics:
• Custody rights: In 2024, custody rights of 1,212 parents over 1,439 children were terminated. This number is higher than in previous years.
• Single-person decisions: There were 485 single-person decisions to terminate custody rights — 56 more than in 2023.
• Court decisions: Courts took away custody rights from 539 people, which is an increase compared to the last two years.
• Out-of-family care: On December 31, 2024, there were 5,341 children living in out-of-family care.
• Foster families: The number of foster families keeps going down. At the end of 2024, there were 686 foster families.
• Host families: In 2024, 15 new host family statuses were given. Every year, the number of new host families in Latvia becomes smaller.
• Guardianship: In 2024, there were 3,818 people under guardianship. 3,329 people became guardians, and 79.8% of them were relatives. The number of people with limited legal capacity continues to rise.
• Cases and decisions: In 2024, there were 22,905 active cases in orphan’s courts, and 6,225 of them started during the year.
The full report is available in Latvian only.
In 2024, the Child Protection Centre (CPC) made and published a report titled “Analysis of Orphans’ Courts Activities Regarding Compliance with Article 203, Paragraph 4 of the Civil Law in Cases of Termination of Parental Custody Rights”. The report looks at whether orphans’ courts review cases within one year from the decision, as required by law, and if, in situations where parental custody cannot be remewed, the court makes a timely decision to statement a claim for the take away of parental rights.
The analysis is based on information from 43 orphans’ courts, covering 706 decisions. The report shows that in most cases, cases are reviewed within the one-year period, however, in approximately 35% of cases, the deadline was exceeded. Delays were often related to staff workload, changes in parents’ residence, or difficulties in obtaining information through international cooperation.
The report also indicates that when parents are given additional time to improve the family situation, in almost half of the cases parental rights are not restored, and filing a court claim occurs later. The CPC highlights that timely case review is crucial to ensure the child’s right to a stable and safe environment.
More information is available in the analytical report “Analysis of Orphans’ Courts Activities Regarding Compliance with Article 203, Paragraph 4 of the Civil Law in Cases of Termination of Parental Custody Rights”. The full report is available in Latvian only.
The analyses report about situations where parents repeatedly have their child custody rights terminated, with a special focus on addictive substances affects families.
• Repeated termination of child custody rights. In 2024, in 79% of cases, the main reason for the termination of child custody rights was parents’ use of addictive substances, which is often linked to violence and child neglect.
• Cooperation with the social service. After custody rights are restored, parents often reduce their cooperation with the social service, which leads to custody rights being terminated again.
• Lack of services for addiction treatment. Only in 53% of cases parents with addiction issues are offered services to reduce addiction, and many do not use these services fully or regularly.
• Not enough family assistant services. Only five out of 43 families from which children were removed due to neglect received a family assistant, even though this service is important for improving parenting skills.
• Services not suitable for parents’ needs. In some cases, the services offered to parents do not match their urgent needs, such as addiction treatment, which slows down effective problem-solving.
• Problems with access to services. Parents and children often have registered and actual places of residence in different administrative areas, which makes it difficult to ensure the necessary services and support.
• Not enough attention to the child’s needs. Social services should be assessed more from the child’s needs perspective, as lack of services may affect the child’s development and behaviour.
• Low motivation to continue cooperation. After custody rights are restored, parents often lose motivation to cooperate with the social service, which leads to repeated family problems.
The full report is available in Latvian only.
The Child Protection Centre (CPC) has made and published a report about unaccompanied Ukrainian minors who entered the Republic of Latvia without parental care (hereinafter referred to unaccompanied Ukranian minor) and for whom emergency guardianship was established and a emergency guardian appointed in 2024
According to Article 18, Paragraph 11 of the Law on Support for Ukrainian Civilians, the Child Protection Centre (CPC) keeps a register of unaccompanied Ukrainian minors and register information about them. This helps provide the necessary information to reunite the child with their family, and also allows the CPC to collect data in a standard way and create statistics.
Based on in 2024 the CPC collected information about unaccompanied Ukrainian minors living in Latvia, using data received from the orphan’s courts.
- From 16 March 2022 to 2 January 2025, a total of 1,477 unaccompanied Ukrainian minors were registered in Latvia.
- On 2 January 2025 was 231 unaccompanied Ukrainian minors were living in Latvia with emergency guardianship established.
- Out of these 231 unaccompanied children, 161 had a relative appointed as their emergency guardian. The remaining 70 children had another person, who was not a relative, appointed as their emergency guardian.
The full report is available in Latvian only.