In Romania, a country where sexual education is absent from schools, a 14-year-old girl from Lugoj gave birth at home.
According to sources among the investigators, quoted by News.ro, the girl managed to hide her pregnancy by wearing loose clothing, and no one knew she was pregnant. She gave birth to a baby boy weighing 2.8 kg.
Both were taken to the hospital, and the doctors informed the Police.
"On January 15, 2025, around 7:00 p.m., the police of Lugoj were notified that a 14-year-old minor had given birth at home and was later transported to the hospital.
The police urgently went to the Lugoj Municipal Hospital (...) Following the investigations, it was found that the minor had engaged in consensual sexual relations in the summer of 2024 with a 22-year-old man," stated the Timiș County Police.
However, any sexual act with a minor under 16 years old is considered rape according to the law.
The police are now searching for the baby's father and have opened a criminal case for rape.
The Timiș County School Inspectorate issued a press release on Thursday regarding this case, raising an alarm about a fundamental social issue: the lack of support and involvement of adults - teachers, parents, community - in protecting vulnerable teenagers.
"Of course, the circumstances that led to the birth of this child are debatable. Of course, we can express various opinions. The issue that arises is how a 14-year-old child came to give birth, and the adults around her had no certainty about her condition, about the experience she was going through alone, understanding or not what was happening to her.
We believe that the experience lived by this child should be a moment of reflection for all adults involved in raising and educating children, about the place and role we have in their lives," wrote the Timiș County School Inspectorate, as quoted by Edupedu.
"It is important to understand that we must go through experiences with children, that we are their mentors, that we are their safety net, regardless of the situations in which their more or less happy decisions bring them," added the cited source.