Social welfare services (SWS) on Wednesday faced renewed scrutiny after a father walked into the office of the commissioner for children’s rights on Monday morning with his six-year-old son, saying he could no longer raise him.

Commissioner Despo Michaelidou confirmed the incident, explaining that the father asked her office to call welfare officers to take over the case. The boy’s mother, who had previously left him in the father’s care, reportedly told the father that she would not return for the child. Michaelidou said the mother is residing illegally in Cyprus and that both she and the child had already been monitored by SWS.

Social workers arrived promptly, spoke with both father and son, and decided the boy should remain temporarily with the father before being moved to a shelter or alternative care. The child has since been placed under the supervision of SWS.

Michaelidou stressed that state placement is a last resort and that it would not have been right to remove the child abruptly. She said efforts would also be made to contact the mother, noting that the absence of a family support network, common among foreign nationals, complicated the case. She recalled that in earlier court proceedings the father had shown he was able to care for the child, though it remains unclear what led to his decision to surrender him.

The case has raised questions about how a family already known to social services reached this point, what kind of monitoring was in place, and whether officials were aware of the mother’s immigration status.

It follows a series of recent child protection incidents. Just 24 hours earlier, a child was found living in an underground hotel in Limassol under poor conditions. Meanwhile, authorities are still investigating the case of five children in Larnaca, discovered earlier this year in alleged abusive and degrading circumstances. Their parents were arrested, accused of creating a “house hellhole” with forced labour and squalid living conditions. That family had also been monitored by SWS for years.

Following public concern, Deputy Minister of Welfare Marilena Evangelou announced on April 7 an investigation into how the case had been handled, with a one-month deadline for completion. The investigating officer later requested more time. Nearly five months after the case came to light, the outcome of the inquiry has not yet been released, and it remains unknown whether any responsibilities have been assigned.

The succession of cases has left a series of unanswered questions for the authorities. Chief among them are what “monitoring” by social services means in practice, who oversees the application of protective measures, and whether children known to the system are receiving adequate protection.