Child Help Line

Until 2006, people who often dialed the number did not afford a lawyer, but wanted to know how they can have the best defense in court, as well as to know their rights as parents and their children’s rights.

Today, people who take calls on the Child Help Line have begun to focus on the children’s serious problems, said Catalina Florea. She is representative for Romania of the NGO in charge of the help line.


"This service aims at providing information and counseling regarding children’s rights. But we also see cases that require immediate intervention by relevant institutions. We’re talking about physical harassment, suicide attempts, which are on the rise and have been reported by children themselves, sexual abuse and neglect. We work closely with local institutions".

"We have contact persons we work with, who take over our messages and cases in order to carry out social inquiries. It’s important to know whether the respective case is confirmed and if it is, measures are taken for the child to leave the abusive environment.’’


Between November 2001 and April 2010, social workers and psychologists took more than a million and a half calls at the Child Help Line.

Ever since the activity focused on children’s needs, problems discussed over the phone have begun to run larger ranges, Catalina Florea told me:



"An increasing number of children call us because they need to communicate. They find a confidant in us and want to tell us what they did at school, what books they have read, and they ask for book recommendations. Others speak foreign languages and they recite poems and sing for us. Not all of them have a problem, but rather they feel they need to be listened to. This tells us that there is a neglect issue involved".

"They do not genuinely communicate with their parents and they even admit to it. They say they would much rather go to the park or do homework with their parents, or have them pick them up from school. Bottom line is they want to spend more time with their parents.

"Talking on the phone with a kid is no easy task. Many of them do not open up and make confessions on a first shot, they need to build confidence in the person they talk to. Even if for us their problems are minor, they are very serious for them and they must make sure that the person they share their problem with is reliable.’’


Sometimes, the children who call confess that they want to commit suicide.

“This child has no attention paid to him, he is not allowed to go to school, he is supposed to take care of his younger siblings, his elder brother beats him up and what he feels is that he does not exist for that family. It was a very difficult case, because at first he did not want to tell us where he was, he wanted to make sure he was doing something right. He needed to grow some confidence and then to move on. There were solutions, but he was not aware of them. We talked on the phone for about an hour until the social worker got to him. And he now calls us regularly to tell us how things are going for him.”, said Catalina Florea about suicidal children.

For children everywhere


Not only children in Romania can call this phone number.



“Such a service exists in all the European countries and there is an organisation that brings them all together, namely Child Helpline International. Our beneficiaries are not just children. Most of the calls we get are from parents actually. Anybody who wants to report a case of children rights violation can contact us, not only a parent. They can be just passers by, or teachers, relatives, neighbours. Why did we decide to include children? Because we wanted to hear their voices, we wanted to hear from them what they thought their problems were, from their point of view, not from the adults’. This number, 116.111 is a single number for this service.” said Catalina Florea.


Romania was the third European country to implement this single number, in October 2008. The number is valid in the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Ireland, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Sweden. All the other countries will implement it too.

When you travel with your children, it is good to know there is this line that you can call in when your child gets into a risk situation. So, remember the number 116111.

(Radio România Internaţional, Serviciul în limba engleză).