THE BUCHAREST DAILY NEWS

Orphans adopted abroad never left Romania

Alecs Iancu

In 27 cases of international adoptions approved by the courts, the children never left Romania, according to a report on inter-country adoptions which has been written as part of Romania's EU accession preparations.

The Romanian Office for Adoptions (ORA) has started procedures to clarify why these children never left, even if their adoption had been approved. Out of the 27 couples who filed requests to adopt a Romanian orphan, 12 are from the U.S., ten are from Italy, two from Spain and one each from Canada, Cyprus and Greece. In some other cases, ORA has evidence that the adoptions were canceled by child protection departments for various reasons. However, there is no knowledge of a similar decision in the case of these 27 adoptions. ORA consequently informed the Foreign Affairs Ministry, which will transmit the information to Romania's embassies in the countries where the 27 couples are located. The diplomatic personnel will contact the prospective adoptive parents and try to establish why the children were never entrusted to them.

ORA is also developing a National Adoption Register in electronic format, for which it has asked for post adoption reports on children entrusted to families living in other countries from those country's diplomatic missions to Romania. The institution will also gather information about international adoptions signed between 1997 and October 2001, as it has no data about these cases. The electronic system will insure security and confidentiality of information, according to EU standards. ORA has stated that over 1,000 adoption requests are currently included in its database, along with nearly 200 court decisions to allow internal adoptions.

Foreign citizens or families who live in Romania and were entrusted with taking care of an orphan should be able to obtain permanent Romanian residence, according to a request sent by ORA to the Authority for Foreigners.

Inter-country adoptions were banned recently after new laws came into effect at the beginning of the year. The new legislation, allowing inter-country adoptions only if the adoptive parents are related to the child, came after EU criticism of "too permissive" laws on adoption. The U.S. and other countries whose citizens had started adoption procedures in Romania opposed the laws. Recently, the Helsinki Commission interviewed a number of specialists from Romania on the situation of inter-country adoption cases which remained blocked when the new legislation came in effect.

Copyright © 2004 Bucharest Daily News