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History Baby hatches have existed in one form or another for centuries. The system was quite common in mediaeval times. From 1198 the first foundling wheels (ruota dei trovatelli) were used in Italy; Pope Innocent III decreed that these should be installed in homes for foundlings so that women could leave their child in secret instead of killing them. A foundling wheel was a cylinder set upright in the outside wall of the building, rather like a revolving door. Mothers placed the child in the cylinder, turned it around so that the baby was inside the church, and then rang a bell to let people know what they had done. One example which can still be seen today is in the Santo Spirito hospital at the Vatican City; this wheel was installed in mediaeval times and used until the 19th century. In Hamburg, Germany, a Dutch merchant set up a wheel (Drehladen) in an orphanage in 1709. It closed after only five years in 1714 as the number of babies left there was too high for the orphanage to cope with financially. Other wheels are known to have existed in Kassel (1764) and Mainz (1811). In France, foundling wheels (tours d'abandon, abandonment towers) were introduced by Saint Vincent de Paul who built the first foundling home in 1638 in Paris. Foundling wheels were legalised in an imperial decree of 1811-01-19, and at their height there were 251 in France, according to Anne Martin-Fugier, a writer on women's issues. They were in hospitals such as the Hôpital des Enfants-Trouvés (Hospital for Foundling Children) in Paris. However, the number of children left there rose into the tens of thousands per year, as a result of the desperate economic situation at the time, and in 1863 they were closed down and replaced by "admissions offices" where mothers could give up their child anonymously but also received advice. The tours d'abandon were officially abolished in a law of 1904-06-27. Today in France, women are allowed to give birth anonymously in hospitals (accouchement sous X) and leave their baby there. In Brazil and Portugal, foundling wheels (roda dos expostos , literally "wheel for exposed ones") were also used after Queen Mary I proclaimed on 1783-05-24 that all towns should have a foundling hospital. One example was the wheel installed at the Santa Casa de Misericordia hospital in São Paulo on 1825-07-02. This was taken out of use on 1949-06-05 , declared incompatible with the modern social system after five years' debate. A Brazilian film on this subject, Roda Dos Expostos, directed by Maria Emília de Azevedo, won an award for "Best Photography" at the Festival de Gramado in 2001. In Britain and Ireland, foundlings were brought up in orphanages financed by the Poor Tax. There were also homes for foundlings in London and Dublin; the Dublin Foundling Hospital and Workhouse installed a foundling wheel in 1730 as this excerpt from the Minute Book of the Court of Governers of that year shows: "Hu (Boulter) Armach, Primate of All-Ireland, being in the chair, ordered that a turning-wheel, or conveniency for taking in children, be provided near the gate of the workhouse; that at any time, by day or by night, a child may be layd in it, to be taken in by the officers of the said house." * The foundling wheel in Dublin was taken out of use in 1826 when the Dublin hospital was closed because of the high death rate of children there. The first modern baby hatch in Germany was installed in the Altona district of Hamburg on 2000-04-11 after a series of cases in 1999 where children were abandoned and found dead from exposure. It consisted of a warm bed in which the child could be placed from outside the building. After a short delay to allow the person who left the child to leave anonymously, a silent alarm was set off which alerted staff. By 2005, 22 babies had been left in baby hatches in Hamburg, seven of whom had later been retrieved by their mothers. Reasons for using baby hatches One reason many babies were abandoned in the past was that they were born out of wedlock. Today, baby hatches are intended to be used by mothers who are unable to cope with looking after their own child and do not wish to divulge their identity. In some countries, such as Germany, it is not legal for mothers to give birth anonymously in a hospital, and the baby hatch is the only way they can safely and secretly leave their child to be cared for by others. Legal aspects Some legal problems with baby hatches are connected to the child's right to know its own identity, as guaranteed by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child's Article 8. Baby hatches also deprive the father of his right to find out what has happened to his child. In Austria, the law treats babies found in baby hatches as foundlings. The local social services office for children and young people (Jugendwohlfahrt) takes care of the child for the first six months and then it is given up for adoption. Women do not have the right to give birth anonymously. In Britain there are no baby hatches as they are illegal: the law states that any mother who abandons a child less than two years of age is a criminal and can face up to five years' imprisonment. In the Czech Republic, the Ministry of Social Affairs confirmed in 2006 that baby hatches are legal according to Czech law. In contradiction to this, in March 2006, Colonel Anna Piskova, a police officer, said on Czech television that the police would look for the mothers of the abandoned children. The head of the Czech baby hatch organisation Statim, Ludvik Hess, complained about this statement and was officially supported by the Save the Children Foundation. In France, the Vichy government adopted the Legislative Decree of 2 September 1941 on the Protection of Births allowing children to be born anonymously. This law, somewhat modified, became the modern right to anonymous birth (accouchement sous X) set down in the French Social Action and Families Code (Art. 222-6). It covers children up to one year of age. In 2003, the European Court of Human Rights upheld this law *, ruling that it did not violate the European Convention on Human Rights. In Germany, the baby hatch system only just borders on the legal; normally a mother who abandons her child is committing a criminal act. However, according to the German social laws, parents are allowed leave their child in the charge of a third party for up to eight weeks, for example if the parents need to go into hospital. After eight weeks, however, the youth welfare office must be called in. German law considers babies left in the baby hatch as if they have been left in the charge of a third party. This loophole is extremely controversial as there have been some cases in Germany where the baby hatches have been used to abandon disabled children or babies already three months old. Several attempts have been made to clear up the legal basis for baby hatches and how to treat the children left in them, but as yet the situation is still not clearly regulated. International situation See also | ||||||||||
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