Adoption of Romanian Boy Stalled

Adoption of Romanian boy stalled

23.08.05 8.00am

The birth mother of a Romanian boy is refusing to sign him over to his NewPlymouth foster mother, Alana Cleland.

Romanian social workers have finally tracked down the woman who abandoned the boy, now 7, as a baby.

She was initially willing to sign the boy over to authorities as an abandoned child, opening the way for Miss Cleland to adopt him, but she changed her mind.

Miss Cleland said in an email from Romania that social workers would apply to a judge next month for an abandonment order.

Copyright C 2005, APN Holdings NZ Ltd

Abandonments at the National Level in Romania - Part 9

Four adoptions under the new law

By Adriana Oprea-Popescu

July 9, 2005

Comparison: At the end of the first half of last year, under the old law, there were 854 finalized and irrevocable national adoptions; that is 213 times more than have been registered in the same period of this year! It is interesting that the national list of approved families was requested only by a few counties. And in the area of adoption, in the whole country, there are only 50 social workers and 34 psychologists who are approved regarding adoptions.

According to the official statistics, the end of last month (May) there were 512 abandoned children in hospitals. At the same time, 800 families with certification to adopt maddeningly sought a child to adopt. But there are only 41 adoptable children and they have already been placed with the lucky families who discovered them in time. Under the new law, there were only 4 internal adoptions done this year.

We live in a country of paradoxes. It is a country in which you have to choose between failing and continually re-regulating the parameters of what is normally called logic and especially after seeing oddities elevated to the rank of normalcy. Many Romanians who wanted to adopt have given up the idea. Not only does the Romanian government not encourage the process of adoption, it also wants to give the impression that it is doing you a big favor by respecting your right to adopt a child. The stories which follow are real and true, although we will not reveal the names of the people involved. They are people who have not yet given up the idea that one day they will become parents. But in Romania, the land of all paradoxes, the one who speaks the truth is not applauded, but rather slapped in the face.

The perfect child.

VM and VG are a young family, age 35 and 38 respectively. Because of medical problems they are unable to have children. Although they could have gone the route of in vitro fertilization, they decided to try to adopt. In January of 2004, they were approved to be an adoptive family. VM tells us, "In July, 2004, after some negotiations with sector W, we were presented with a little girl, T, who was sick with syphilis, although she had been treated. We visited her and asked to have her in legal custody. The CPS from sector W assured us that this would not be any problem. The little girl was in foster care, together with another child, K.

In order to appear before the commission which decides these things, we needed a medical certificate with regards to the health of the child. But we had to wait because the doctor was on vacation. We visited the child often, and introduced her to our relatives. In September of 2004, the foster father informed us that the other child's (K) family was found. However, he added that he was concerned that these family members were so old, more than 60 years old, and that they had a daughter living in the U.S. who had adopted a child many years before. The foster father was afraid that K would also end up in America.

Well, the doctor returned from vacation, but when we asked the foster father to go get the medical certificate he told us that the CPS wanted to care for K's file first. After 10 days, we were informed that the little girl (T) wasn't feeling very well. But for us this child was perfect and we were unwilling to give up on her.

At the commission hearing, the surprise was enormous. They told us that the little girl (T), 2 ½ years old, was not attached to us and manifested some mental problems. I ask, if this was really the case, why did they allow us for a period of more than 60 days to visit her? Furthermore, why were allowed to put in the request to have the child in our legal custody? Here's what happened. We found out later that the family who was more than 60 years old had adopted both children, including our daughter, T.

From the beginning.

This couple overcame this disappointment and started all over again. "In November of 2004, we were came to know of another child, a little girl, from sector X. We visited her, she spent holidays with us, and on the 3rd of January, 2005, we went to the CPS for legal custody of the girl. You know what we were told? 'The law has been changed, and this child is no longer adoptable, until a judge clarifies the situation.' Our approval for adoption had expired and we had to go through all the proofs necessary to obtain this approval and then we had to go back to where we started once again. We accumulated much experience and nerves. And now we were wondering more and more often, 'Should we just leave Romania?' "

Story number 2

Story number two, of the hundreds which could be written, is the following. U is the mother of a little girl who was born with a small birth defect. She and her husband both wanted a second child, but no doctor would guarantee them that such an accident would not happen in the new pregnancy. Consequently, they decided to adopt. They obtained the approval and waited a time to be told by CPS that a child had been found for them. "They told us that there no adoptable children, and we should wait longer." How is such a thing possible? We finally managed, though an acquaintance, to get into maternity hospital X. (in this hospital there are currently 12 abandoned children; the oldest of them is 6 months old) We found a little girl that had not been visited by anyone for more than 5 months and we began to hope. But in the end the police found the mother and brought her to the hospital. She was offered social assistance, but she refused to take the little girl home. She was not married, had to care for her mother, and had another little girl at home who was 6 years old.

She had given a notarized declaration in which she requested that the younger little girl be given in foster care and that she didn't want to maintain any ties to the child. But when she found out that we wanted to adopt the little girl, she quickly changed her mind. We don't believe that we are the ones who awakened her maternal instincts. Rather, she believed that we would come to her, offering money and begging her to let us adopt the child. We didn't do this. Why should we give her money? Because she birthed a child and afterward abandoned it to be forsaken for more than five months? We suffered because we had fallen in love with the little girl. We then sent out request to adopt to many of the county CPS's in Romania. We didn't receive even one response. But we didn't count only on them. We want to get in to maternity hospital A through a gynecologist that we know and we also want to get into maternity hospital B through a friend of ours that we know. I hope we will manage.

Seeking for him.

JG is another mother who wishes to adopt a child. She visited a maternity hospital and here she had the good fortune to find a child that had been put in foster care in November of 2004. She related, "I received the child that I wanted to adopt, but from that point on nothing has happened. I have been waiting for an answer from the police regarding the search for the birth parents, but for the moment nothing has happened. CPS changed their regulations and I don't know how, and they don't have their apostils (official stamp), etc. etc. It's impossible, I say, that in seven months absolutely nothing has happened. It's a shame that for many, these children are nothing more than dusty files, although it is well known that the first years of life are absolutely crucial in the later development of the children."

Another mother RC, still makes her way through hospitals seeking a child for herself. "Since the beginning of the year I have sought in desperation for a child to adopt. I have appealed to approximately half of the CPS's in this country. I have appealed to foundations and I have gone to the maternity hospitals. But I have not managed to accomplish anything. My heart was broken when I saw these abandoned children. But in Romania they are not adoptable children. Something essential has been lost from view. These children are not numbers on a piece of paper, they exist, they are innocent souls who need to be given a chance to be protected and reared by responsible people." RC still asks, "Why does the law obligate social workers to beg an irresponsible mother who has abandoned her child, to take the child home? And force the mother to do so just because she made a mistake and gave birth to that child? A true mother should and must be able to give her life for the life of her child."

How can one get around the new adoption law?

In spite of the fact that the new adoption legislation is very strict, there exists a possibility by which it can be relatively easy or without complications to adopt a child. This practice is used particularly by foreign citizens. In some cases the future mothers are contacted by gynecologists or nurses by a potential adoptive family. These teenage girls, and especially who are in difficult circumstances or don't want the child, are easy to "smell". In a case in which a mother is in agreement the solution for getting the couple a child is relatively simple. At birth, the adoptive "husband" declares that he is the genetic father on the birth certificate and the birth mother then renounces her rights. In these conditions the child is considered, in fact, the child of the man who declared that he is the father. And in the course of a couple months can leave the country. A small impediment might be that the "father" has to demonstrate that at the moment of conception he was in Romania. But this situation can also be arranged because the birth can be declared to have happened at 7 months instead of 9. It's also possible that there would be no need for this latter stratagem since such couples constantly make trips to Romania. The only one who can impede this process is the actual genetic father, but often he doesn't know or isn't interested in the child. Prosecutors can also verify this if they want and if they have information. Theoretically, the new law provides that when a child does become in fact adoptable, adoptive families can be selected from the central list at the National Authority for Adoption, or from the list at the CPS in the county where the child is domiciled. But in reality is the families who wish to adopt must take the initiative. They send proof of their approval, as well as their requests for adoption at their own expense to all the CPS's in the country. Their chances are minimal but it's worth it to try. There is formed a network of relationships through which these potential adoptive parents receive an announcement such as, "I heard that in X county there is a blond child three months old who is adoptable". Adoptable means that the child has been declared adoptable by a judge.

More often than not, however, potential adoptive families wander through hospitals throwing out a discreet question, "Do you know somehow, about a child...?" If you want even minimal information about the child, medical information, ethnic origins, data concerning the mother, you have to 'feel' a little more. You have to go to the CPS where, using a method which is opposite that of the law, you ask to have a child in foster care in order to adopt. Those who involved with the file might be social workers who are friendly or blasé workers who need to be convinced to move a little more quickly. After you receive the child into your family, and after he becomes a part of your family and in fact a part of your very soul, the last one you have to convince is God, with a prayer every evening for the birth mother of the child like this, "Lord, help her to not change her mind." During this time, the process of adoption begins. But you might meet up with a judge, who when he looks in the file says, "You didn't look for the mother in the village of "Bump in the Valley" (hole in the wall village). We can't go on-try to find her." Again you pray. You might even want to include prayers for the dead. And low and behold, months go by and with much fear and many gray hairs later, that the one who already calls you momma might be taken from you. Forgive me, you were wondering about adoption? But don't change your mind, because love for a child can overcome all things.

Solutions proposed by Jurnalul National

We believe with all of our soul, though not with the same stubbornness that others have, that the natural family with all its problems, is the first place in which an abandoned child should be placed. However, reintegration into the family must be done in a professional way, not only so you can write 'resolved' on the file folder. It's not sufficient, if a parent after months in which he/she demonstrated his/her disinterest, to now come and say out of the corner of his mouth, "O.K., I'll take him back." There needs to be some serious home studies done in the field as well as real post-reintegration monitoring. If the number of social workers is not sufficient, it needs to be supplemented. If they need to be motivated financially, then institute a system of rewards and penalties. If they don't have the equipment necessary to go out into the field whenever there is a need, then funds need to be allocated. And last, but certainly not least, the census bureau must have a way in which they can register children and parents in emergency situations, because at times neither has a birth certificate. All these measures must take priority. Don't ask where the funds must come from, because it would take us another 10 editions of this newspaper to enumerate to the last cent the finances from PHARE funds. But in any case, there must be a limit to the time in which a child can be integrated into his birth family. We believe that a period of six months is sufficient, for all parties concerned. In six months you can put your life in order, and the maternal instinct, if it exists, can overcome any prejudice. In this six month period a child could stay with a foster family. This foster family is a temporary solution. If this period is too long, taking the child from the foster family will traumatize the child. The solutions to the problem of abandoned children, should be reintegration in the birth family and internal adoptions. If in the first six months the first option isn't realized, the child should be given a second chance. We think the laws, at least in the ways they are written, are made in the interest of the child. But in order to prevent delays and long time periods, it is necessary to form special courts which will know the legislation as well as the various aspects of these problems.

All our proposals are in conformity to the law. We don't wish to demolish this law. We want it to become functional. We do support small changes there, where it has been demonstrated that in six months of practice, the law has in fact complicated the situation rather than helping it.

Abandonments at the National Level in Romania - Part 8

"Why is everything perfectly simple in Dolj?"

by Adriana Oprea-Popescu

Jurnalul National

July 8, 2005

In the first five months of this year (2005) there were 101 children abandoned in Dolj county. However, authorities there maintain that the whole business is going well. If we can depend on that statistic as being accurate and not low, (something which it is very difficult for us to do when it comes to CPS units), what, we ask, is the secret of this unconscious "productivity"? In order to discover the secret, we went to the county which occupies the "pole position" -- Dolj. Children in the Emergency Orphanage in Craiova have remained there for many long months until the resolution of their cases. The workers there have become "borrowed mothers" who have at least 6 children each.

The Craiova county hospital has 12 floors and a capacity of 1600 beds. This hospital has an army of directors who become very aggressive when it comes to a personal work with anyone from the press. In our previous professional relationships, there were many among them who, being disturbed, sent us back to where we came from. In Dolj, everybody sends us to the official spokesperson. This person continually keeps his phone turned off. In his absence, the other medical people fled from before us as if we had come to frighten them rather than to make a documentary. After much investigation, we found out that there were three abandoned children in the hospital. The records show that there were 74 children abandoned in this hospital in the first 5 months of 2005. All were healthy. However, a social worker in the hospital informed us that there were 67 children abandoned just in the maternity unit of the hospital. She did add that many were reintegrated into their families. When we risked a question, "But how do things really stand?", we were told go to CPS. You must receive their permission to come here in this hospital. End of conversation. Complicated are the musings of bureaucracy. Even though we weren't permitted to even explain our motives for coming, the director of the pediatric section told us, "If you love these children, speak about them."

At another hospital in Craiova, "Filantropia" we spoke with Dr. Antonia Ciupeanu. She told us there were 38 abandonments in the first 5 months of 2005. Some of them occasionally receive a visit from their mothers. Most of these children are healthy, affirmed Dr. Ciupeanu. "There are many more abandoned children this year than last year," she said.

The abandoned newborns have formula but not clothes or pampers. They still use flannel diapers which aren't changed very often. "Don't they get a rash?" we asked. "Sure, but they get irritation from Pampers, too," said the directress.

Out of the 101 cases of abandonment, we were told that 90 were resolved. But a number of those were 'resolved' via placement in the Emergency Orphanage in Craiova. Did we hear correctly? Placement in an orphanage??! The new law states that placements of this kind are forbidden, except in the case where the child is severely handicapped. So we decided to try to find out what kind of children are in this Emergency Orphanage. But of course, to enter there, we found out we had to get permission from the local CPS. Having received approval, we went for a tour like visitors in a museum. We even saw a room where parents could come and visit their abandoned children. In one room, there were six cribs each with a child in them. They were about 6 months old and cried only to make us look at them. They didn't make any claims to be held but only for us to look at them and perhaps to smile. There are 17 abandoned children in this Emergency Orphanage, but only 5 have any serious problem. Most of their problems are heart problems which are inoperable in Romania. They remain condemned. The other 12 are healthy. During the day there are usually 4 people on the first two shifts. On the night shift, there are only 3 employees. How can one person handle 6 babies if they all start to cry at once? There is another law which states that there must be at least one educator for every 2-4 children on each shift. These children are between 2 months and 18 months of age. We were told that they remain here "a definite period of time". Until the age of majority?? That's a definite period of time. Of the 17, only 2 have been visited by the parents. For the rest, God have mercy. It's only fair to say, however, that this Orphanage in Craiova is not the only one in this country that illegally houses healthy children under the age of 2.

In four months of investigation, we saw hundreds of abandoned children. The ones in Craiova are not necessarily the most victimized. For the most part they haven't come in contact with very sick children like those who are in the hospitals. What has happened, at least from our point of view, is immoral. It's also illegal! And it's a kick in the stomach to the law nr. 272 from the year 2004 with regard to the protection of the rights of the child.

In Dolj, there are 198 foster parents, (five of them are males) who have 336 children in their care. There are cases in which these foster parents have 6 children given to them in foster care. This year, two children died while under the care of these foster parents. In one case, a severely ill little girl 4 years of age was left alone because the foster parent (maternal assistant) was at work in the field. An autopsy showed that death was due to inhaling her own vomit. However, the police determined that it was not the maternal assistant's fault. This maternal assistant was put on leave but will have a psychological evaluation and will be able to have another child in foster care. The other child who was 11 months old, died of a heart defect which was not found by the doctors.

In Dolj, there are an average of 25 newborns abandoned per month. This doesn't include other abandonments. But the situation is perfectly under control. At least that's what Victoria Croitoru, assistant director at the CPS maintains. In the first 6 months of this year, CPS in Dolj received 154 notices of abandonments. Victoria Croitoru maintains that 100 were reintegrated into their families. She told us that the reintegration process usually does not take much more than 3 months, but we have had cases, she said, in which these children were re-abandoned. Steliana Boian, a counselor at CPS Dolj, is of the opinion that reintegration in the birth family is not always the best solution. She said that in many cases of reintegration the children were integrated into families of drunks, who did not in any way care for these poor children and who drank away all the money. It follows, then, that many times these children are abandoned once again.

Abandonments at the National Level in Romania - Part 7

Reintegration Just for the sake of integration

by Paula Anastasia Tudor

July 6, 2005

Jurnalul National

Law Nr. 242 from the year 2004, made by EU experts and impossible to be modified in its absolute perfection, strongly militates for the reintegration of the child in his birth family. In Constanta county among all the abandoned children, there were only 5 reintegrations. Some of those, after a little time, were re-abandoned in the same hospital from which they had departed.

As of June 21, 2005, in the Constanta county there were 45 abandoned children or 53 depending on the source. For them, vaccinations which are obligatory and supposed to be free, are rarely done. The assistant director of the pediatric unit of the county hospital tells us, "Up till 18 months ago, we received injectable anti polio and DPT vaccines. But this form of the vaccine is no longer available. Now, the polio vaccine is in the form of drops which are administered orally and contain live viruses. If we give the children this vaccine then we must isolate them for at least a month and a half. Otherwise, it would be a danger to the other children who have not yet been vaccinated. They haven't been vaccinated because they are not of the required age, or are ill. We have had children who got polio for this reason. We are not able to keep them in isolation for this amount of time, because we do not have room for them in the hospital! And in any case, those who come in contact with these vaccinated children, will later on come in contact with those who have not been vaccinated, thus putting the unvaccinated children at risk.

Unvaccinated and unvisited, these abandoned children are exposed. The head of the gynecology unit, Dr. Vlad Tica, warned that, "If they stay very long in this unit, it would present a great danger of infection." A length hospitalization in Romania leads to repeated sicknesses which put all of the newborns in danger. Catalin Grasa maintains that, "Infections in the hospital cannot be avoided since the hospital is a place for sick people and there are all kinds of plagues, biological agents and germs which are resistant to antibiotics and it follows that it is very difficult to put the brakes on various infections which arise." These infections include respiratory infections, food poisoning and other diseases which children get from spending a long time in the hospital. Mihaela Dinisov related, "I have repeatedly drawn attention, in writing, to the proper authorities, to resolve the growing problem of abandoned children in the hospital. But the problem of abandonments still remains."

The new law regarding protection of the rights of the child strongly maintains, to the detriment of other good solutions, the reintegration of the child in his birth family. At this moment it is the only solution approved by the authorities for abandoned children. The rate of efficiency of reintegration in Constanta county is 4.3% in 2005. Since this new law took effect, the labor of the social workers is more comparable to punishment. Mirela Gene says, "When we find the birth parents or extended birth family, we take the child to them, but many times after a short while, they are brought back to the hospital." This happened to at least 6 children in 2004. "These families, when they see the policeman at the door, demanding that they accept the child into the family, agree to this measure but not for long. At the first opportunity, they bring him again to the hospital," explained Ionel Rodica. The process of reintegration continues like a parody until the one who tires first quits. Mirela Gene further explained that one reason for the lack of success is that, "the social workers, instead of having 30 cases, are burdened with 300." According to ordinance Nr. 69 from the year 2004, each child reintegrated must be monitored for at least three months, with a recommendation that it be six months. But this law has not been enforced or applied in many situations.

Mirela Gene told us that there are only 10 adoptable children available, in the sense that they have been declared abandoned. She said, "It is an enormous responsibility to attempt to reintegrate a child into a birth family. Usually these families live in a crushing misery, in unbelievable poverty and in a milieu in which the child is in no way safe!" Many times these birth families live day to day from what they can scrounge from the local garbage dumps. Many times the birth mother and her mother appeal to the authorities at the hospital to find someone to adopt the child so that the child will at least have a future. Yet many times signatures are not gotten for this. Sometimes the birth family visits occasionally and there are occasions when the child has reached the age of three years and the child is once again fetched by the mother.

I was told of one case in which a little boy was abandoned by his parents at the hospital. The little boy went into foster care and is now 5 years old. He has been well cared for by the foster parents. Now, all of a sudden, the parents, who had forgotten about him for 5 years, have decided that they like him; they want to take him home. However, at home there is a brother who is seven years old and he doesn't know how to talk nor how to act. How can it be in the best interest of the child to give him back to a set of parents who didn't want him for 5 years and yet still were not stripped of their parental rights? One of the inspectors from Constanta told us, "This is extremely unfair and not right for the child. He has become attached to the foster parents and to take him from them and give him back to the birth family, which in fact doesn't deserve him, in order that he might live in filthy conditions both from the moral and from the hygienic point of view is not right." Of course in the first place, the child does not want to go into such conditions. One of the social workers asked rhetorically, "How is it in the best interest of the child to reintegrate him into a family that lives at the garbage dump?

An inspector told us, "The greatest impediment to resolving these cases is, in fact, the new law, because it permits birth parents or birth family who cannot or will not raise the child, to intervene repeatedly in the life of the child, even though they have abandoned him. This is not in the best interest of the child." A "European Law" for a country in which poverty and ignorance are extensive doesn't make sense. Such a law is not appropriate for a country in which there exist way too many cases of abandonment or where there are so many lazy people who wait for the state to give them money to raise their children and later to care for them in their old age.

There is another solution which should certainly not be the last one, and which is supported by all that we spoke with. This solution is to strip the parents of their rights because of their abandonment of the child. The sanctioning of parents who abandon their children should take place after a specific period of time, but not a long one. The unanimous opinion of all that we spoke to, is that this new law is in general a law which protects the rights of "forgetful" parents who abandon their children.

In Constanta county, there are a multitude of children in the hospitals and in foster care whose legal situation is unclear. There are only 10 who could possibly be adopted, although there are 37 families who have declared their wish to adopt. Unfortunately, the new law gives no information as to the amount of time that can be spent trying to repeatedly reintegrate the child into the birth family. The law does state that the maximum number of cases that a social worker/manager is permitted to handle is 30, but in fact each has about 300.

We also found that there are numerous children under the age of 2 who are being institutionalized in Tulcea county. One "veteran" of the system is Marian who was abandoned at the beginning of December 2004. This child has not drawn a breath of air which has not been filled with the smell of alcohol and chlorine. There are files on whose cover is written, for more than a year now, "attempting reintegration in the extended birth family". The average rate of abandonment at the Tulcea county hospital is 3 children per month. Zaharcu Nevifer told us that they obtained 14 children's beds in order to care for the average number of children remaining abandoned at the hospital at any one time. But where do these children go if they don't stay at the maternity hospital? Many of them are put in institutions which are supposed to be in the process of being emptied. The law Nr. 272 from the year 2004 states that, "Placement of a child who has not reached the age of 2 in foster care is possible only for the extended family or another foster family and placement of this child in an institution is forbidden. The problem is that not all of the abandoned children have been reintegrated into their families nor given in foster care. At present, in the Cocorii orphanage in Tulcea, there are still 8 children who have not reached the age of 2 and yet are still institutionalized. They have neither medical nor psychological problems at the moment. The law further states that the only time a child under the age of 2 can be put in an institution is when he has severe handicaps. There are still more than 20 children in the Cocorii orphanage and 14 of those do have some problems. But for the 8 healthy ones (who are under the age of 2) we must say that their institutionalization is immoral and illegal. We were not allowed to enter this orphanage. There were plans for two family type homes and a special care center for handicapped children but why the long delay with regard to this project? The funds for this came from PHARE. However, in Tulcea it appears that these foreign funds were spent frivolously. Another orphanage, for example, received foreign funds to build a sports hall. After the sports hall was finished and furnished, another promise of funds came from some French people. With these funds were bought several ovens for baking. Now, the sports hall has been transformed into .. a bakery.

Abandonments at the National Level in Romania - Part 6

Retarded because of a lengthy hospitalization

By: Paula Anastasia Tudor

July 5, 2005 Jurnalul National

Nasuf was abandoned in the pediatric hospital when he was 6 months old. He was brought there by arelative who didn't know anything about him, not even his birth date. The boy has now spent 2 ½years in the hospital for no reason. In the Medgedia hospital in Constanta county, this little boyhas not ever celebrated a birthday because nobody knows exactly when he made his entrance into theworld. Eight months after he was abandoned, Nasuf's little brother was brought to the same hospital.Nasuf is clinically healthy but is delayed in his psychological development because of his lengthyhospitalization. We found another three children in the exact same situation.

According to information furnished by Mirela Gene, assistant director at Constanta CPS, there are,on average, 19 children abandoned each month. In the first five months of 2005, there were 45children abandoned. But in the registry of CPS Constanta there were 53 abandoned children andaccording to Dr. Mirceni Popescu, "At the beginning of the year, we had 60 abandoned children in thehospital. Last year they might have been candidates for adoption and would have been adopted into apermanent family. But now under the new law, they have a very long road to get to that point andwill probably remain in the hospital for many months or even years."

Many of the children abandoned in the hospital are basically healthy. But in the hospital, which bydefinition includes a multitude of sick people, the risk that these healthy children will becontaminated grows exponentially the long they are in the hospital. Neonatologist, Dr. Teodora Bucurtold us that the nurses have become substitute mothers for these children. She said, "I'd take themall home but under the new law it's not possible. Their situation is legally unclear. We had a cutelittle girl here and a foreign family came to visit us and wanted to adopt her. Other foreignfamilies came as well. The mother is in Italy. Because it was so difficult to find the mother, thechild is not now adoptable internationally. Conditions in our hospital only allow us to keepchildren up to the age of 1 month. What are we going to do? Our beds are a kind of crib. Clothing isdiapers. Food is baby formula. But the children grow, the beds can't hold them and are dangerous.Their clothing comes from medical personnel who work in the hospital or from other people who knowabout their situation."

She continued, "Mothers come, give birth and run away, abandoning the child. If one comes backwithout identity papers, how can we give them the child when we don't even know that it is hers? Ifwe give her the child and it is found in the garbage, something that has happened, we will probablybe found guilty."

The law states that within five days of abandonment, and if the health of the child permits, the CPSis required to place the child in foster care. This foster care is supposed to be with fosterparents. "But in actuality this doesn't happen because there is not enough money to pay the fosterparents," said Mirela Gene. Consequently, the children remain in the hospitals. Doctor Bucurmaintains that, "We are already seeing the number of children abandoned in the maternity hospitalsgrow because of this financial crisis." The law also states that the police must find the motherwithin 30 days. But it is rare that they ever do. If they don't find her, the child's case is sentto the public assistant's office. They have 5 days to establish a family name and a first name forthe child and to officially register the birth of the child with the appropriate civil authorities.There is yet another problem. Usually at least 40 days have passed since the birth of the child. Butif the registration of the child's birth does not take place within the first 15 days, city hallissues a fine of $15. There are no exceptions made to this. Not even for the public assistanceoffices who are in fact under city hall.

If the child is over 1 year old, his birth information can only be registered via a court sentence.And of course this process takes a long time. Furthermore, a child without a birth certificate doesnot benefit from social assistance nor free medical help. From the perspective of the NationalHealth Insurance Authority, these children do not exist because they do not have a personalidentification number and birth certificate.

Is it worth it to wait for a parent for 2 ½ years while lying on a bed in a hospital and gazingtoward the door?! In the Medgidia Municipal Hospital there are 10 such children. Andreea Bianca hasbeen condemned by her parents, who, after abandoning her in the hospital now refuse to sign for anoperation that she needs. The hospital can do nothing for Andreea because through the law herparents still retain their rights over the child. Her lengthy hospitalization, in addition to the lack of surgical intervention, has led to chronic infantile encephalitis. She also has delayedmental development because of this birth defect.

To return to the case of Nasuf and his brother. Nasuf doesn't have a birth certificate. On his chartis written the following: "dystrophy, anemia, rickets, retarded psycho-motor skills because oflengthy hospitalization." This child could recover if he would grow up in a family who loved him andwanted him. After a long investigation, the mother of these two boys was found and reunited withthem in the hospital. Someone from Constanta CPS informed those in the hospital that they had foundthe father of the two boys. This person said that the father will come and take the boys. But twoweeks have gone by and the father has not come.

Last year, there were 6 children who were reintegrated into their families from the MedgidiaMunicipal Hospital. In the first half of this year, 5 have been reintegrated. However, there arestill others who remain in the hospital, "where it is not appropriate for them to be." So saidFlorina Draghiceanu. Many times it is written on their charts, "retarded psycho-motor developmentdue to lengthy hospitalization."

Some children are taken from the maternity hospital but are not put into families. Rather, they aretaken to the pediatric hospital. There are children who have been brought to these pediatrichospitals by the parents and abandoned there for many months. No solution has been found for them.The parents can leave them whenever they want and take them whenever they want. And most of the timeat home there are conditions which contribute to repeated sicknesses.

Legally, these children are far from being considered abandoned or adoptable and thus not much canbe done for them. The parents seem not to want them, but are unwilling to give up their rights. Butin extremely rare cases, some "deposited" children do go home to stay with their parents.

At the Constanta County Hospital, the pediatric ward is on the 10th floor. The children stay inrooms with 4 beds. There are 8 abandoned children at this time, including twin girls who are 10months old. These two do have some medical problems. They are blind. They could be operated on inBucharest, but no one can tell us why this medical intervention has not taken place until thispoint. Another abandoned girl, Sibela, was left by her parents after they briefly took her home fromthe hospital. No one has come to see her and she has three siblings at home.

Vintila N. was admitted on December 7, 2004, for an intestinal operation. He was operated on and isfine. He was 6 months old when he came to the hospital. He is now over a year old and nobody came toget him. He doesn't have a birth certificate. Demirel is the 11th child in his family. The mother is43 and the father is 57. He is 4 months old. He was brought to the hospital on June 11 and nobodyhas expressed any interest in him. Maxun is over 2 years old and has been admitted to the hospitalrepeatedly. He does not have a birth certificate. And as is usual in Romania, if you don't have abirth certificate, you don't exist! There are others like him in all the other hospitals inRomania. Mihaela Disinov told us, "It's not healthy for them to stay in the hospital. It affectsthem physically and psychologically." The problem with attempting to put these children in fostercare is that there is no money to do so. The threat of running out of money for foster parents alsoexists as was witnessed previously in Constanta. Thus, the threat of foster parents being laid offand the children sent back to the orphanages still exists.

Abandonments at the National Level in Romania - Part 5

Throwing milk powder in the eyes of abandoned children

The only possibility for some children whose parents flee from them is foster care. Arriving in substitute families, if such exist, these children remain there year after year. Will we become a land of foster parents?

At the beginning of June, the governmental authorities assured us that within a month the situation with regard to abandoned children in the hospitals would be improved. But the time-out has expired! The abandoned children in the hospitals are now equally abandoned by both their parents and the state. We rightfully request that the government fulfill its obligations, not with mere phrases, but with actions. We have overlooked the inexactness of the Prime Minister's letter to us long enough. We must fulfill our obligation to the children and to our readers to continue to publish the facts.

The system of child protection is in collapse. Neither the Prime Minister nor the minister of Health seem particularly interested in solving the problem of abandoned children. We believed that these responsible people, sensitized by the articles published in our paper, would decide to do something for these children. But low and behold, in more than a month and a half we have not seen one concrete measure put into practice and absolutely nothing has happened to resolve the problem. In their own turn, the authorities were also waiting..for the subject to be forgotten and for vacation time to come. It's interesting that not one governmental representative was curious enough to read our articles published in Jurnalul National. In this we find the most frightening news in the life of a journalist. It's more frightening than a kidnapping in Iraq or armed robbery.

In fact, after we buried an abandoned child which we could not save, the drama of this child's life became the daily promotional tool for our paper. The cross which Dirla Tudor Florin, a child born by happenstance and buried out of pity, still burdens our shoulders. In his name and for the sake of others like him who still remain in hospitals we are debtors to continue this series.

What is the price of EU integration? Our campaign for these children has continued without being noticed. We ask, "What is the purpose of trying to hide the truth?" What will be the price of entry into the EU? We know already.

The new law is not just any kind of law, but a special one. It is a law which does not allow any modifications, not even to a comma, if we wish to greet our entry into the EU. But with what price? There are multitudes of children who are in hospitals without any medical diagnosis. If a price must be paid, there are four children from Constanta on whose medical charts is written, "delay in psychological development because of a lengthy hospitalization." These are our exchange money for entering the EU. Are the healthy children in another hospital in Tulcea, who have not even reached the age of two years and who are still institutionalized, our tribute money to enter the EU? We don't believe that there exists even one Romanian, at least one of sound mind, who would accept such a trade. Oh, we're fainting with joy and thankfulness that Emma has said we are a great example to the region with regard to child protection laws (with song!).

Bogdan Panait, president of the National Authority for protecting the rights of the Child, said, "As a government, we have accepted the responsibility of not modifying this law. We will see how good it is and how much it corresponds to the Romanian reality." We ask, "But when??" Teodora Bertzi, president of the National Authority for Adoption, maintains that, "Our country would demonstrate a lack of seriousness if we change this law. We cannot do this." We ask, "Would we demonstrate a lack of seriousness if we change the law where it is obviously not viable?? Furthermore, do we demonstrate our seriousness in allowing healthy children to become retarded in hospitals or even to die because of infections received in the hospital?"

Who leads us? What we really need is not merely an examination of the law, but an examination of people's mentality. O.K., let's begin with the workers at the CPS. The social workers are burdened many times with 300 cases instead of the maximum of 30 allowed by the law. And these are people with salaries of between $150 and $300 a month. They have such a great passion for their vocation that every Friday at 2:00 p.m. (at least in Bucharest) rip off the doors of their office so they can get to their weekend activities. Whose mentality should we examine? How about examining the medical realm where on children's charts there's not a place for recording cycle motor stimulation of abandoned children? How about examining the police who don't even have a body of legislation which allows them to intervene more rapidly in these cases? And until when must the Romanian people wait for these people to be renewed in their mentality? And what shall we do with the children who remain in the hospitals? In the end, we're not sure who's leading us. We have one certainty. God who governs the souls of those who believe, is over all. And we write as if He, as distinct from those in the government, would find time to look at our paper. We believe He will set things in order among men. But until we get to heaven, will we hear anything with respect to the drama of these children? (from the government? Jonathan Scheele? Emma Nicholson?)

If the EU wants reintegration in the extended family, even though the law does not describe any limits as to the time in which this action can be taken, then how long shall we persevere in this? In Valcea, one case reached the 8 year mark. A 14 year old girl was finally reintegrated with her step father. The law states that every CPS has to employ one person who will maintain a direct relationship with the hospitals and the abandoned children there. Well, more than a month has gone by and the miracle hasn't happened. Are we being too impatient? A recent study which followed the development of the brain of children between 0 and 36 months, showed that three months in an institution without adequate stimulation has catastrophic effects on the later development of the child as well as on all areas of brain development.

Here's the problem. There are 512 children abandoned and let's not forget that, under the old law, if they weren't visited in six months they could be declared adoptable. Let's say there are 800 families who are approved to adopt. Why is it that there are only 41 adoptable children and in the first half of this year only 4 internal adoptions have been done under the new law? And of course no one international adoption. Why? Because genetic grandparents who are domiciled outside of Romania and who want to adopt are about as common as dogs with pretzels in their tails. There is one case which was filed almost two years ago by a family established in the U.S. who, although they are citizens with domicile in Romania and who could go the way of internal adoptions, preferred to adopt as an international adoption so that later on they would not have problems... with the Romanian government.

Abandonments at the National Level in Romania - Final Comments From A

Again, A is my Romanian Source. Here are the final comments from A.

1. These people don't know the definition of REintegration. How can a child be REintegrated if he was never integrated in the first place?!? (The "re" prefix is quite clear in its meaning in Romanian = "again")

2. I find it hard to believe that 59 out of 66 abandonments in Iasi county were resolved in less than 5 months. Maybe these were some of those moved from maternity hospitals to pediatric hospitals or ???

3. Where are the kids for the long months that "relatives to the fourth degree" are being sought??? Orphanages for the most part, I'd guess.

4. Probably all these children would have families at a very early age (a "need" demonstrated by voluminous research and easily available on the internet and trampled on by the new law) if a draconian law would not be in effect which makes adoptions by foreigners an illegal act and retroactively makes guilty those who began adoption proceedings legally (shades of communism!).

Abandonments at the National Level in Romania - Part 4

The Offer? - Absolutely Nothing!

The maternity hospital in Valcea has a social worker who is supposed to care for the "bureaucracy" involved with getting children declared abandoned. There are other hospitals in the county, however, who don't benefit from this kind of help, although the law requires them to have someone take over this responsibility.

The 34 children abandoned so far this year in Valcea, include children between the ages of a couple days and 5 years. Among them, 16 newborns were placed with foster parents, while another 4 with diseases like syphillis and other deformities were put in orphanages. One child is in foster care in Bucharest with a view to being adopted. Only one was reintegrated into the birth family. Another 12 children are with foster parents. At the end of June, there were no abandoned children in hospitals in Valcea.

There are, however, 12 families who would like to adopt and another six who are waiting to be approved to adopt. However, for a long time, the offer of a child has been nonexistant. There are no children deemed legally adoptable. The explanation is quite simple. The procedure under the new law is extremely difficult. An abandoned child can only be declared adoptable after much, much time has passed. During this time, attempts are made to reintegrate the child into the birth family or extended birth family. Usually many months pass before someone from the birth family can be found. The record for length of time is a girl of 14 who was abandoned in 1996. The search for relatives to the fourth degree lasted eight years and was finalized last year when her step-father was found and he agreed to accept her into his home.

Abandonments at the National Level in Romania - Part 3

Stories from Children Returned to their birth families

The village of Varbila is a poor village. Much too poor for a Romania that is preparing to enter the gates of the European Union. There are also many Gypsies. Today these Gypsies are no longer slaves, but they seem just as poor as they did in bygone days. In their little huts, where you bump your head every time you enter and exit, a whole host people squeeze together. One more child, along with those already existing in this house, means one more mouth to feed, one more child in a bed already full of children, more clothes to buy, etc.

A Pretty Lie

The village of Varbila does not have a medical clinic, consultations are given in the school, in a basement where at the window gather clusters of children from the village to see undressed babies. At one time, examinations were done in the school office from among lists, or in a classroom on the teacher's desk. Then they found the solution of using the basement. Finally, the county commissioner decided to transform the old bar in the village to a dispensary/clinic. That left the drunks in Varbila without a 'place to work.' So they did this because of the fact that women from there have babies, but prefer not to take them home. Just last year four of them gave birth in a hospital in Bucharest, where they also left their babies. So they could hide their past, women from Varbila didn't give their address like it is recorded on their identity card: village of Varbila, Community of Iordacheanu, county of Prahova. They said they were from the village of 'Virbilan' or from the community of 'Iordachioaia', or other variations of these same names. They didn't have a big enough imagination. Thus, the newborns were reintegrated into their families.

Better

Christina M. gave birth last year to a little boy, Valentin. As she said before she gave birth, she had health problems for which she was hospitalized. The child was also born with health problems. His spinal chord was operated on and his life was hanging by a thread. "He stayed a long time in the hospital, as he weighed only 4 pounds at birth, says the mother, but I wasn't able to stay that long with him. I didn't have any way to pay for the hospitalization, we didn't even have anything to eat. I went home and left him there. After a while I went back after him. Now he's with us at home, he is a year and 4 months old but he is always sick. We always have problems with him. And here in the village there's not any possibility to be helped. I never thought of abandoning him, but wouldn't he have been better off with a family who is better of materially and could offer him more, than with us?"

In the first quarter of the year in maternity hospitals in Prahova, there were 32 abandonments of babies. In the official report from the National Adoption Committee there reported only 7. At present there are 37 approved families, signed up on a list to adopt a child, but at the county level in Prahova there are no adoptable children. (Nina Marcu)

Abandonments at the National Level in Romania - Part 2

Reintegration Into a Family - For Money!

Although it finds itself in the top two counties with the most abandoned children, Iasi county has found a solution for getting the abandoned children out of the hospitals. "If we can find the birth family, we try to integrate the child, because the county will give $100 to the family for a period of one year. Other relatives willing to take the child are able to benefit from support also," declared the Iasi director of CPS. Last year 202 children were reintegrated in their larger birth families. But can $100 per month stimulate parental love? Many of the children when back to their families, but they weren't wanted by anyone. Many times it seems that these children telepathically sense that they are going back to a family only for the money the family will get for taking them back. What has happened with these reintegrations after the six months in which these children were shoved back into their families? In fact, at the official site of CPS Iasi, it was announced that from March onward there are insufficient funds to prevent institutionalization and there are insufficient funds to reintegrate these children in their families. Also, according to our sources, there are only two CPS workers to supervise 1,043 foster families.

Abandonments at the National Level in Romania - Part 1

Although those from the Ministry of Health continue to maintain that newborn children abandoned in maternity hospitals involve children with problems which necessitate hospitilization, nevertheless statistics and reality contradict such assertions. To quote prime minister Tariceanu, "these abandoned children are born with a low birth weight and one or many handicaps." But in fact, why would hospitals have need of this argument to explain the number of beds occupied [by abandoned babies].

In conformity to the UNICEF report, "The Situation Regarding the Abandonment of Children in Romania", in the whole study, 66.6% of children born have a normal birth weight or above. The prevailing rate of 34% of abandoned newborns with low birth-rates is worrisome when the low birth weight among all births is only 9%. We are obligated to explain where Tariceanu made his mistake. In the first place, 34% is not a majority. In the second place, a healthy child, even if he has a weight of 2,500 grams, does not need to be hospitalized and can be sent home. This UNICEF report also says that only "9% of the abandoned babies were born with congenital malformities." At the same time, at birth, "87% of these abandoned babies had an Apgar score of 8 or above. We ask, do these children really need to be hospitalized for months (as claimed by Tariceanu)?

In Iasi County, according to the official reporting statistics, there were 66 abandonments. But as of May 27, 2005, there are only seven active cases. "We had an explosion of abandonments in February, when we had 16 abandonments," explained Florin Ion, director of CPS in Iasi County. "But now we have only five." The numbers show the reality of the situation, but one can never quantify the desire of children to hear the voice of a mother or feel her gentle hands.

The gravity of the situation is known best by the physicians from the maternity hospital "Cuza Voda" in Iasi. In fact, this facility has become an "orphanage" for children who have remained "without a mother". Dr. Mariana Nica told us that "In 2003, we had 17 abandonments of children, in 2004 we had 27, and in the first quarter of 2005 we've had 18 already." "These statistices worry us," he said, "and all these abandonments [under the new law] turn us into detectives more than doctors.

"In Cluj, there are about 100 abandoned children in maternity and pediatric hospitals. By June 13, 2005 there were already 41 additional cases of abandonment. This contradicts the National Adoption and Child Protection Committee report which said that there were only six. Thirty of these 41 cases involve newborns. The other 11 are very young children between the ages of 4 months and 5 years who have been "conveniently forgotten" at the hospital, by their mothers. All the ones in the maternity hospital are healthy. "The major problem is not the new law, which is good," maintains Monica Filip the director of CPS for Cluj County. The problem, she maintains, is in the implementation of the law. "Our problem is that every case has to have a service plan for the birth-family and the child." Another problem is that in Cluj County there are only 170 approved foster parents, and this number is totally insufficient, even assuming that each foster family receives two children. At this time there are 582 children in institutions and another 216 in foster care. In 2004, of the 95 cases of abandonment, only 20 were reintegrated in the birth family. The rest are waiting either in institutions or foster care. At this time, not even one of the abandoned children has been declared adoptable. Monica Filip told us, "The new procedures under the new law are more difficult. The declaration of adoptability must be made by the courts, and up to this time we haven't had even one sentence handed down regarding adoptability in our whole system here in Cluj.

"In the two maternity hospitals in Giurgiu County, there were two cases of abandonment registered in the first five months. Reintegration in the natural families or extended families is an extremely long process. The more permanent process of internal adoption is even more difficult and long. Veronica Gavrila from the CPS says that there are 14 adoptable children in Giurgiu county. However only one case has even been begun with respect to adoption. She said, "There is very little manifest interest in adoption." Only eight families have even declared their intention to adopt.

In Sibiu County children under two years of age who have been taken out of hospitals are put in the Community Service Orphanage until they can be placed in foster care. Sibiu County reports three cases of active abandonments in the first five months of 2005. The greatest problem is finding the parents or relatives. Adriana Barza, spokeswoman for Sibiu CPS says, "It's toilsome labor and usually many months and even years pass until we manage to find relatives. In many cases we never do find the parents or relatives." At the end of April, 2005, 904 children were under the supervision of Sibiu CPS. In orphanages there are 561, 19 are in an emergency care shelter, and 279 are in the care of foundations. As of July 2005, there are no children declared adoptable in Sibiu County.

Cherry Picking Issue

What is happening in Romania at this time is that since the adoptable children identified by foreign agencies cannot be adopted at this time by said agency, the the DPC/CPS must then find a suitable family within Romania to adopt. This makes it easier for DPC/CPS to move a child out of an over-burdened system but leaves the foreign agency and foreign prospective parents out in the cold without a child. Of course these excluded people are for the most part American. DPC/CPS is targeting the children Americans were in the process of adopting when all adoption was shut down. The following is from my source - A - in Romania.

Assuming the child has been declared adoptable by the appropriate judge, the DPC/CPS must then find a suitable family to adopt. A suitable family must gather mountains of paperwork, home study, medical work-ups, psychological exams, blood tests, etc. I would find it hard to believe that this could all be done in a month, but for the sake of argument, let's say it's possible. Here, then is the timeline as I understand the law (I'm putting it in as rapid terms as I can imagine, somethingwhich in my opinion is highly unlikely to happen). Excluding numbers 7 through 9 we get a total ofbetween 4 months [that'd be a miracle] and 7 months. Realistically, I'd say that 6 months to a year is more likely with the latter figure being the most likely. With our Romanian friends who've adopted (admittedly under the old system, which wasn't nearly as complicated) it took 18 months.

1. All paperwork on the suitable family - 1 MONTH

2. Judicial decision to put the child in the potential adoptive family - Probably 1 MONTH (to get court dates and decision)

3. Proving time with the adoptive family - 3 MONTHS (that's the law as I read it - 90 days). This may be waived if the child has already stayed with the potential adoptive family for at least 3 months.

4. Report on the situation by DPC must be done the last 5 days of that 3 month "probation period"and finished before the end of that 3 month period so it can be submitted to the judge per nr. 5 below.

5. Judicial decision to extend the stay with the potential adoptive family until the adoption is resolved - Couldn't find any timetable on this but it's usually 1 MONTH.

6. Time for court dates regarding the final, definite, and irrevocable sentence to be given - 1 MONTH

7. Time to contest the court decision (this usually ranges from 3 to 15 days) (Judges have extended this in the past - illegally???)

8. After the final, definite and irrevocable sentence is handed down (and contestations [if any] are dealt with), the DPC/CPS has 5 days in which to send a note to the last known address of any birth-parent(s) named on the original birth certificate (I couldn't determine if relatives to the fourth degree had to be notified.)

9. Paperwork to be issued to the adoptive parents within 3 days (dream on)

P.S. In the most extreme case, I suppose that one could eliminate nr. 1 as having been done already, nr. 3 if it was the case, and combining all the other time frames down to 1 month total to give a time frame of 2-3 months [normally, quite unrealistic, in my opinion]. Things would really have to fall in place one after the other (might happen if you really "greased the wheels", -- more than that I'll not say).