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Safia

Beyond Safia’s impressive career progression, her new life hasn’t been just about work. Naturally outgoing and sociable, she quickly formed deep friendships in Milan. After two years in the Caritas run reception centre, she moved in with two other young Afghan refugees. In their shared apartment, she once again hears and speaks her native Dari at the end of the day.

Safia’s story is more than a tale of escape — it’s a powerful symbol of quiet resistance and transformation. With the courage to defy oppression and the strength to embrace freedom, she has turned trauma into opportunity and loneliness into a new beginning. Safia continues to move forward without ever letting go of her identity or values.

Read Safia’s full story

Pout

In 2024, an unexpected dream came true: Pout was selected for the Italian National Refugee Football Team to compete in the Unity Euro Cup in Geneva. Wearing the blue jersey, he represented Italy with pride, emotion and deep gratitude. After the tournament, he told his teammates it was one of the most powerful and moving experiences of his life. Pout’s journey is one of resilience and transformation. One moment brings his story full circle: years ago, UNHCR welcomed Pout and his family at a refugee camp in Ethiopia. A decade later, the same organisation welcomed him again — this time in Geneva, as a professional intern. A circle completed, and a future reimagined.

Read Pout’s full story

Innocent

Eugénie and Innocent have now experienced all the seasons in Aalst, and in winter they were as delighted by the first snow as their children. “Winter felt like a fridge — so cold,” Innocent says. “And when it snowed, I went outside just to feel the snowflakes!”

Isaro Miguela is now three years old and goes to preschool. “She’s learning Dutch really well,” says Innocent. “Her favourite word is ‘no’.” Innocent is also taking Dutch lessons, and Eugénie will start soon. “Otherwise, I won’t understand my own daughter anymore!” she jokes.

On the wall of their small apartment hangs a large photo of the people from the welcome group. “They help us with everything,” says Innocent. “The paperwork especially is hard for us. We feel like people who’ve woken up in a new life!”

They don’t talk much about what they left behind in Rwanda or the problems in Congo. “We do sometimes call our family,” Innocent says. “But we don’t follow the news from Congo anymore. We did enough of that. We are here now.”

And here, in Belgium, is where he wants to build his future. “I would love to become a truck driver,” he says. The traffic jams on the highways don’t bother him, he claims. At the end of the conversation, he wants to ask us a question. “Is it too ambitious?” he wants to know. “Do you think I could become a truck driver?”.

Read Innocent’s full story

Bawako

Barwako, like her parents, faced challenges. While she was diligent and disciplined at school, she struggled to make friends. Her illness isolated her; she could only eat liquid foods and usually ate alone in her room to avoid being seen. At last, she was able to undergo surgeries to reconstruct her palate and gradually separate her lips. Though in hospital, those stays gave her a rare sense of connection and hope, and she made friends during those two months of recovery. Sadly, her medical report revealed she suffers from a chronic autoimmune disease that will likely worsen over time. However, there have also been moments of joy for the family, such as the birth of a sixth child, a symbol of hope and trust in their new life in Italy. The family gradually gained more independence.

After five years in Ragusa, Barwako and her family moved on to continue their journey elsewhere in Italy. They left with deep gratitude for the support they had received

Read Barwako’s full story

Education pathway: Pout’s arrival

Through the university corridor UNICORE 3.0 programme for refugee graduates, Pout moved to Italy to pursue a two-year master’s degree in Transnational Governance at the European University Institute in Florence. Caritas Florence welcomed and supported him throughout his studies and integration journey.

Humanitarian corridors: Barwako

Barwako was able to travel with her family to Italy through Caritas Italy’s humanitarian corridors programme. Though the local Caritas and diocesan community in Ragusa supported their integration, it was a difficult and painful process, especially for the parents, who struggled with the cultural shock. Mohamed, the eldest child, adjusted more quickly. A teenager eager for independence, he often expressed a desire to find work outside Sicily.

Humanitarian corridors: Safia

Thanks to Caritas Italy’s humanitarian corridors programme, Safia was able to come to Italy. There, she began building a new life. For the first two years, she lived in a Caritas Ambrosiana-run reception centre. During this time she learned Italian, completed an online course with Accenture and secured an internship at Ernst & Young, which later became a full-time job.

Resettlement: Innocent’s experience

Innocent and his family were resettled in Belgium – a country they had never heard of. That changed quickly. “We received two weeks of training from Fedasil (the Belgian federal agency for the reception of asylum seekers) about life and customs in Belgium,” Innocent explains. Most resettled refugees end up in a collective reception centre. They stay there for a while until they find housing and can live independently. But finding your footing in a new country where you often don’t speak the language is no easy task. That’s why the Community Sponsorship programme was created. Instead of a reception centre, the resettled family is welcomed by a group of volunteers. They provide housing, furnish it, help with paperwork and other challenges, and drop by for a friendly chat.

The volunteers from the welcome group were waiting for Innocent, Eugénie, toddler Isaro Miguela and baby Berwa White at the Brussels International airport. “They even carried our luggage,” Innocent says.

Safia’s story

Safia is a young Afghan woman who fled her homeland at just twenty years old – escaping Taliban rule and a forced marriage. She risked everything for safety, freedom and a future of her own choosing.

With the Taliban’s return to power in the summer of 2021, Safia — like millions of other Afghan women — watched her dreams and plans shatter. Under pressure from her family, fearful of the dangers she might face alone, she was forced into marriage. But Safia never stopped planning her escape. Soon after the wedding, she pretended to be ill and asked her husband to take her to the hospital. Once there, she slipped away, took a taxi and began her journey to freedom. She fled to Islamabad, Pakistan, where she found work through contacts online. While searching the Internet, she discovered Amad, an Italian NGO. Though they couldn’t help her directly, they connected her with Caritas Italy and its humanitarian corridors programme.

Innocent’s story

In 2024, Innocent’s wife Eugénie received a letter from the UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency. She had been selected for resettlement. And since she was now married with two children, the selection applied to the entire family.

“It was fantastic news,” Innocent says. “We had already heard of people who got to live in the U.S. or Canada. And now we were selected too!”

Pout’s story

Pout’s journey began in Malakal, South Sudan, where he lived with his wife and children. As the conflict in the region intensified, life became unbearable: daily violence, kidnappings and military checkpoints targeting people of Nuer ethnicity, like Pout. Faced with increasing danger, he fled with his family to a UN-protected civilian camp. But like many others seeking safety, he soon realised that a return to normal life was still out of reach.

Barwako’s story

Barwako is a 12-year-old girl from Somalia. On 30 November 2017, she arrived in Ragusa, Sicily, with her family. As a young child, she developed a skin condition that caused the loss of her lower lip. Her father, Abdì, had lost his first wife and children in an Al-Shabaab attack while he was away herding livestock. The threats continued. The militants eventually seized his livestock and forced Abdì to enlist. With these developments, Barwako’s mother, Khadjia, decided to flee to Ethiopia with the youngest children. Only later was Abdì and their eldest son, Mohamed, able to join the family in Italy.

Innocent’s story

Innocent was just a teenager when he fled with his family from the violence in his home country, the Democratic Republic of Congo. Now an adult, he arrived in Belgium in 2024 after many years of an uncertain future. Innocent speaks good French, but he prefers to tell his story in his native language: Kinyarwanda. Clémentine, an educational worker at Caritas Belgium, translates.

“There was a lot of violence,” he says.

“My family kept fleeing, again and again. To another village, to another region. Until the soldiers came there too. They killed people, set the bodies on fire. It was horrific.”

Along the way, Innocent lost contact with his family. He only found them again when he reached the border with Rwanda. There, he was able to find refuge in a refugee camp. He stayed there for 12 years.

Catholic Social Teaching at the heart of our work

Caritas Europa is built upon the foundations of Catholic Social Teaching (CST). Sometimes called “the Catholic Church’s best kept secret”, CST was formalised in the years following the industrial revolution but is ultimately based on Church tradition and the teachings of Jesus. Human rights law in Europe was drawn, in part, from the same tradition over many centuries.

The key principles of CST are:

– Life and dignity of the human person
– Call to Family, Community, and Participation
– Rights and responsibilities
– Preferential option for the poor
– The dignity of work and the rights of workers
– Solidarity
– Care for our common home

These principles guide Caritas Europa’s decision-making processes, advocacy positions, and approach to humanitarian work. Most importantly, we place the human person at the centre of all we do.

The reflections you will read on this page are contributions from theologians, lay persons, and any individual who has felt inspired to share with us the ways in which Catholic Social Teaching influences and informs their work in Caritas.

We accept voluntary submissions from anyone connected with Caritas. Send your text to stemlett@caritas.eu. We cannot publish everything we receive but we will review your submission and get back to you as soon as we can!

Summary text

Executive summary

Population ageing is the defining global trend of our time and demand for long-term care (LTC) is soaring, but public spending is not keeping pace with demand. The median age of the population of the EU27 is projected to increase from just under 43.7 years in 2019 to 48.2 years in 2050.

This report provides an overview of current trends in LTC as it applies to the aging population and based on the perspectives and experiences of care recipients relying on the services of Caritas care staff. Caritas Europa, with its network of 49 Caritas organisations in 46 countries, has been at the forefront of providing LTC services for an ageing population throughout Europe.

The Caritas staff involved in the data collection process shed light on some of their own experiences and practices. Not surprisingly, Caritas’ experiences mirror the general key trends and demographic changes pertaining to LTC seen across Europe. Essentially, these trends relate to the affordability, availability, accessibility and quality of LTC, and they reflect, among others, the:

increased number of older people and, thus, dependency on LTC services and support;
increased demand for LTC services by people aged 65 and over;
persistent major barriers to LTC in terms of affordability, accessibility and coverage;
increased vulnerability of many older, poorer people;
insufficient public expenditure on LTC at national level and lack of public investment in LTC;
challenges in recruitment and retention of LTC staff;
continued reliance on informal care in many countries;
very limited statistical data on the diversity of LTC workers, particularly live-in care workers and those working irregularly in non-standard employment;
very little control or protections for live-in care workers due to their placements in private households;
low remuneration for LTC workers and low valorisation of this sector, with the majority being migrant women;
concern about undeclared LTC workers in the EU and their likelihood of facing poor working conditions and exploitation;
concern regarding the emigration of care workers from central and eastern European countries, both EU and non-EU, to other western European countries and particularly to EU Member States, for better pay and conditions, and the impact this has on the families and communities left behind;
concern about the lack of qualified care personnel, especially in countries from where care workers are emigrating; and
the feminisation of poverty.

Our findings also refer to the lack of integration between social and health care, an increasing overemphasis on bureaucracy rather than on social impact, a misplaced marketisation and commercialisation of social care services, and a lack of investment in not-for profit service provision, including social economy initiatives, and home and community-based solutions, including investments in adequate and comprehensive live-in care services, which could fill this gap. Combined together this creates a social care sector that needs targeted attention and support. Overall, the experience of Caritas organisations demonstrates that the present LTC infrastructure, services and support across Europe are inadequate to meet the needs of the present population, evident by the above list of trends. This situation is further aggravated given the unequal access, the high costs, and the growing waiting lists for professional social care services.

Our findings refer to different levels of spending and investment, from one country to the next – with a generally unsustainable underfunding in the care sector overall – which has contributed to the current crisis in the social care sector in Europe and its over-reliance on “cheap labour”, often provided by mobile and migrant women care workers, informal carers, as well as those active in the undeclared sector. This also alludes to the phenomena of “care drain” and emigration and the repercussions of insufficient upward social convergence between EU Member States.

This imbalance is a major contributing factor to the phenomenon of the feminisation of poverty across Europe. Such emigration can impact negatively not only on the children and elderly parents left behind, but also on the entire community without adequate care services or personnel remaining. This, in turn, highlights the need to improve the valorisation of this sector and the working conditions and pay of the LTC workers. Not surprisingly, our findings highlight the significance of migration, and the important contributions migrants are making to the provision of LTC across Europe, and thus the need to expand regular labour migration pathways for purposes of work.

For Caritas, it is vital that governments do not resort to merely facilitating migration as the solution for addressing the labour market shortages in the LTC sector, as this just puts a “band-aid” on the problem rather than addressing the root causes, namely that there is too little valorisation of this essential job sector, often extremely low salaries for LTC workers, not enough career development opportunities, and major inequalities within and between EU Member States and between EU and non-EU countries. It is thus vital to address social asymmetries across the EU in order for Europe to achieve greater upward social convergence and strong social welfare systems across the continent. A long-term vision for reforming the current LTC systems is necessary, to ensure quality, affordable and accessible care that is available everywhere, including in rural settings. To achieve this, governments must reform their LTC systems and increase public investment in LTC, so that quality services and support are offered, obtainable, and affordable for all, particularly for those who are in situations of vulnerability and in most need.

Based on these and other findings, recommendations for policymakers have been formulated to support the Council of Europe, EU and national governments in reforming the LTC systems, which are currently underperforming in the context of demographic change. Considering the recent adoption of the Council Recommendation on access to affordable, high-quality LTC, agreed by Ministers in the EU Council, Caritas’ recommendations should not only be relevant for national governments in the design of their LTC action plans and strategies but should likewise be important for the EU institutions and non-EU governments in Europe to consider in modernising their LTC systems. This is relevant considering the certainty of the increasingly ageing population and the understanding that the need for LTC is not only a national issue but one that crosses borders and deserves a European solution, if not a global approach.

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Safia

Pout

Innocent

Bawako

Education pathway: Pout’s arrival

Humanitarian corridors: Barwako

Humanitarian corridors: Safia

Resettlement: Innocent’s experience

Safia’s story

Innocent’s story

Pout’s story

Barwako’s story

Innocent’s story

Catholic Social Teaching at the heart of our work

Executive summary

Population ageing is the defining global trend of our time and demand for long-term care (LTC) is soaring, but public spending is not keeping pace with demand. The median age of the population of the EU27 is projected to increase from just under 43.7 years in 2019 to 48.2 years in 2050.