| Summary: | GUS (Polish Central Statistical Office) statistics indicate that around 3.5% of children born in 2014, that is some 13,000 children, were born to teenage mothers. Out of this number, around 50-60 children were born to 13-14-year-olds, which means that the pregnancy had resulted from a criminal offense. These figures are also due to the decreasing age of sexual initiation among youth, a low quality or absence of sexual education in schools, as well as limited access to information and family planning. The current legal framework and circumstances also impact the condition of young women who get pregnant while in the care of rehabilitation centres. It is difficult to find comprehensive publications devoted to teenage mothers – girls who were placed in a youth care or a juvenile centre due to having committed a criminal offense or because of profound demoralisation – that would discuss both the legal issues and practical solutions applied in different centres. The problem is an important one, however, because it highlights systemic shortcomings when it comes to supporting mothers and babies in such institutions as well as the vast room that is left for violations of children’s basic rights, such as the right to be brought up by one’s biological parents and to maintain an unbroken emotional bond with them. The article examines the legal status of teenage mothers and the practical solutions applied at different rehabilitation centres. The aim is to present all the possibilities of helping teenage mothers in the care of youth care centres or juvenile centres, who are going through crisis and require external support, for example in the form of basic legal provisions and solutions regarding the placement and stay of juveniles in rehabilitation centres, the types of rehabilitation measures available or subsequent public help for young women leaving such centres. The Author discusses Polish legal provisions designed to protect motherhood as well as a range of important issues related to juvenile pregnancy, such as school duty or access to medical services. Also discussed are the state’s most recently adopted measures to support motherhood, showing a need to provide additional aid for this group of beneficiaries, with particular emphasis on access to benefits for juvenile mothers living in rehabilitation centres. The article also presents practical solutions introduced by the staff at different centres, aiming to fill the gaps in the law when it comes to acknowledging the bond between a biological, though juvenile, mother and her child, which often isn’t appreciated enough. The featured examples are drawn from information collected by Po DRUGIE Foundation which helps former residents of rehabilitation centres, as well as from ethnographic research carried out for a current project to set up a care institution for juvenile pregnant women and juvenile women with children, allowing them to continue their rehabilitation beyond a centre. The article highlights numerous state measures to provide multi-faceted support for motherhood and parenthood in Poland, while at the same time pointing to the systemic discrimination of girls from juvenile centres, who are thoughtlessly deprived of the chance to take responsibility for their children or, if given such a chance, lose the support of the institutions obligated to resocialise them. The Po DRUGIE Foundation project aims to fill these gaps, both in the law, by developing provisions to provide care both for juvenile mothers and their children, and on the ground, by setting up an institution dedicated to this group of recipients.
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