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.