Raised by Strangers: A Childhood in State Care in Dualist Transylvania
Raised by Strangers: A Childhood in State Care in Dualist Transylvania

Summary/Abstract: The extremely high infant mortality rate among illegitimate children in Hungary motivated the state to create the legal framework of the Hungarian child protection system in 1901. Through the State Children’s Asylums, it offered care for abandoned children from infancy up to 15 years by placing them to foster parents for monthly payments. Many were born out of wedlock and abandoned in infancy, but parents facing financial difficulties could also admit their offspring. According to statistics many children were retrieved by their biological parents. Foster families were selected to fulfil certain criteria, could be changed and controlled; nevertheless, there were abuses, and work exploitation was common among older children. Despite the cases of bad treatment and the fortunate cases of integration in the foster family, most foster parents offered the physical requirements of growing up in decent living conditions.

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