Anna Ghannamová started the "saving nests" that have rescued 14 babies. (source: SITA)
DURING four years of operation so-called "saving nests" have rescued a total of 14 Slovak babies, Anna Ghannamová, the president of A Chance for the Unwanted non-governmental organisation told the SITA newswire.
A saving nest is a publicly-accessible incubator where women can leave unwanted babies anonymously. The service is free and safe: no action is taken to trace the mother, providing she herself shows no wish for contact; and the child gets a chance of survival, according to the organisation's website.
"Babies whose mothers do not return can be adopted after six weeks," Ghannamová explained. After this period, the children become "legally free for adoption". Three mothers have come back to reclaim their children.
Ghannamová said that the ambition of A Chance for the Unwanted was to create the opportunity to save an unwanted baby, follow it statistically, and evaluate it.
"Of course, we are happy that babies from these nests have found new families and a loving environment," Ghannamová said.
In Slovakia, there are 13 saving nests in twelve towns, two of them in Bratislava. Most "abandoned" children were recorded in eastern Slovakia, in the Prešov and Košice Regions. Next came the Ĺ˝ilina Region, while the fewest cases were in western Slovakia.
