John Mulligan Comments on Irish Radio Program

John Mulligan, Chairman, Focus on Romania, comments to Pat Kenny of the Irish Radio RTE Radio 1 "Today with Pat Kenny" concerning adoption in Romania. This concerns Friday's program of 2/24/06.

Dear Pat,

Your programme is usually interesting, thoughtful and balanced, but sometimes it manages not to deliver to its usually high standards. These occasional lapses are forgivable when no injustice is done to anyone, or when the victims of such unfairness have easy access to your airwaves in order to rebalance the equation. In the case of last Friday’s show however, the people who suffer most from such blatantly incorrect and unjust reporting tend to be those with no voice, hence the need to set the matter straight, if you will allow that.

I was in Brussels on Friday and did not hear the programme live, although my email and phone inboxes were quickly filled with messages from people who listened to the show with increasing incredulity as the slot progressed, but who were unable to get through to the programme caller line. On my return on Friday night I replayed the show on the internet, unable to believe my ears at what I was hearing. I know that there are varying shades of opinion on most topics, but some of what I heard from two of your contributors was so far off the mark as to fall into the realms of utter fantasy.

Anne McElhinney is an anti-adoption campaigner, so although I can not even begin to imagine where she is coming from, she is at least true to what she believes. Her view as I understand it is essentially that children abandoned by their natural parents should remain in institutions, no matter how terrible the conditions, rather than be adopted by properly vetted and caring families in another country. While this may be a perverse view by normal standards, it is obviously an honestly held belief in her case. While I know that there is little point in trying to persuade someone with such extreme views as to the error of their ways, it is questionable that she should be allowed to peddle such nonsense on our national airways without challenge. All I would like to say in comment on this part of the programme is that one bad adoption should not be used as a benchmark when so many others are successful.

Anne McElhinney lives in Romania, and it is a real pity that she never looks at the true facts that are clouded by the pronouncements of the Romanian government in the area of child rights. It is certainly much easier for a journalist to recycle government press releases, but would it not serve the reputation of her profession somewhat better if she were just occasionally to carry out some investigative work in the hospitals and institutions there? Investigative journalists such as the Sunday Independent's Maeve Sheehan seem able to find out more in Romania in two or three days than Anne McElhinney has been able to do in ten years.

The second contributor, Barry Mulligan, is in my view more insidious for the very reason that his pronouncements can be seen to carry more weight. His friend Anne McElhinney is at least expected to have extreme views and is not taken seriously by many observers, but Barry has some level of credibility given his former role as the Irish government’s Honorary Consul. This makes his wildly inaccurate pronouncements all the more damaging; having met him once I can confirm that he appears to be essentially a nice enough fellow, but he is obviously blinded to some essential facts by his friendship with McElhinney. It is very important that you set the record straight at least on the more incredible and fanciful statements made by Barry in the course of your interview with him.

His statement that seems to justify the ban on international adoption, i.e. when he said that there are more adoptive parents in Romania awaiting children than there are children available for adoption, is completely false. It is simply and utterly miles from the truth. The figures given by the Child Rights department in Romania are of 36,000 children in institutional care, but they also state that there are no more children under the age of three in institutions. We found last year that they had managed to make more than 4,000 (some observers estimate the figure to be as high as 9,000) of these latter category vanish from the statistics by retaining them in maternity hospitals in order to keep them “off the radar” where the EU is concerned. These children live in hospital wards with no stimulation and with only basic care until they are old enough to enter institutions. When I asked a senior official in Romania’s adoption board in October last as to whether the best interests of these children would be served by international adoption, she replied “of course”. In addition to their hiding these smaller children in maternity hospitals, they are also being stockpiled elsewhere; a few days ago another well respected international human rights body discovered 60 children hidden in an unofficial institution, and formed the view that their development was being damaged by the day due to lack of proper care and stimulation.

I am not a spokesperson for adoptive families, but our work in Romania in the area of human rights allows us to see for ourselves the truth behind the figures that Romania produces in order to achieve EU membership. It is a pity that commentators who live in that country choose not to open their eyes to these facts.

Barry Mulligan’s second wildly inaccurate pronouncement also needs correction. You asked him whether the “bad old days” in Romania’s institutions could be said to be over, eliciting the reply that those days were “most definitely gone”. What utter rubbish! Where has Barry been for the last ten years? Does he not even read the local papers in Romania? Such trite comments do more than show up Barry as someone who doesn’t know what he is talking about; the peddling of such misinformation does a grave injustice to the tens of thousands of victims who still suffer in Romania’s frighteningly overcrowded and under funded institutions. Such bland pronouncements merely serve to make all the more difficult the work of NGOs like ourselves who work for the reform of such places.

The reality is that the “bad old days” are still very much with us, for example:

1. The Child Rights department admits that there are 36,000 children in institutions, and in addition there are between 4,000 and 9,000 additional children “stacked up” in maternity hospitals. An unknown additional number are kept out of sight in unofficial institutions. There is widespread abuse of human rights, including the use of daily sedation as a management method in the absence of adequate staffing levels. Good plans for reform exist at central level, but do not manage to trickle down to the target group.

2. There are an admitted 23,000 adults in institutions under the department of handicap. A reform programme is under way here, with a pilot project sponsored by Focus on Romania in partnership with one of the local authorities. At the current rate of progress the reforms in this sector will have been completed in 930 years!

3. No real plans for reform exist in the mental health sector. There are somewhere between 40,000 and 100,000 persons living in mental hospitals, although you do not need to be mentally ill to qualify for inclusion in this category. Just a couple of months ago, a five year old boy was found living in one such place in Urlati in Prahova County; he had been born as a result of the rape of a female inmate, and was living in a cage among a group of naked and filthy adults. This horror story was recounted in Romania’s national daily paper Evenimentul Zilei, on January 10th of this year. If Barry Mulligan were even to read the local papers, perhaps he might understand that the “bad old days” have not gone away.

The vagueness of the numbers in this latter sector, somewhere between 40,000 and 100,000, is due to the non-availability of any kind of accurate information; we asked the EU representative in Bucharest for exact figures and he was unable to elicit such figures, although the EU can confidently state that Romania is meeting all its commitments in the human rights field. Amnesty International found widespread use of captive slave labour in the running of this sector, and the EU advice that only “a partial budget” exists for this area would appear to reinforce this view. The use of slave labour is forbidden under the UN convention on human rights, but such high standards appear not to be required for EU membership.

The EU could solve much of this unnecessary suffering at a stroke, by making reforms a condition of the accession process, but have so far not chosen to do so. With the exception of a few lines in the October report, largely put there as a result of our lobbying, the EU has adopted a “hear no evil, see no evil” approach to this matter. The main thrust of policy in Brussels is for enlargement at all costs, and human rights issues do not generally get a hearing in Europe’s capital. We have found evidence of deliberate understating of the scale of the problem by officials in the European Commission, leading to a situation where the politicians in the parliament are making decisions based on erroneous information. An opportunity to force through reforms is being lost by the inaction of the EU, and the public pronouncements of Anne McElhinney and Barry Mulligan are no help to those of us who believe that human rights should be at the top of the enlargement agenda. Shame on them!

If it is possible to get access to your programme in order to help redress this imbalance and injustice I would be quite willing to speak on air on this issue on Monday.
(I will be working outside of Ireland again from Tuesday). You can contact me at the number below.

John Mulligan
(Chairman, Focus on Romania)


www.focusonromania.net

Love and affection 'transform orphanage children'

Irish Examiner

Introducing love and affection into the lives of orphanage children has an"astonishing" affect on their growth, scientists heard today.

Research has shown that children abandoned at birth and placed in orphan homes not only suffer emotional and mental problems but also fail to grow at the normal rate.

But a study of children in Romania has proved that fostering can work a miracle on the children.

Once in the hands of loving foster parents, they rapidly become taller and heavier until they catch up with other children. At the same time, they grow in intelligence and start to overcome their emotional problems.

The American study, started five years ago, compared the progress of about 70 Romanian children growing up in Bucharest orphanages and a similar number given foster homes. In almost every area of development, the children who were raised in institutions, mostly from birth, were found to have suffered impairment.

The findings, presented today at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in St Louis, Missouri, bore out previous research showing that young children lose roughly one month of growth for every three months they are in an orphanage.

Three-year-old children from orphanages are only the size of two-year-olds. By the time they reach their teenage years, they are the size of children half their age.

But the scientists were amazed by the physical transformation seen in children handed over to specially-trained foster parents at between six months and 26 months of age.

One of the researchers, Dr Dana Johnson from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, said: "When they arrive they have a tremendous amount of catch-up growth. The kids who went into foster care grew beautifully. By a year and a half they had reached normal size.

"We've seen astonishing growth in these kids over a short period of time."

Why being in an orphanage should affect a child's growth is not entirely clear. Scientists know that such children produce less growth hormone than other children, but the physical processes involved are not understood. It appears to be an example of the way emotional factors can have physical effects, especially early in life.

The scientists conducting the Romanian study ruled out poor diet as an explanation. Despite being in institutions, the orphanage children were properly fed.

Children staying in the orphanages were also seriously stunted in relation to intelligence, the AAAS meeting was told. Their IQ scores were said to be close to "retarded" levels. But again, they appeared to catch up after being placed in foster care.

The same pattern was seen for emotional disturbances such as depression and anxiety. Children suffered more of these problems while in orphanages, but improved greatly after spending between 42 and 54 months with foster parents.

Behavioural problems, such as aggression and hyperactivity, were also heightened in orphanages, but in this case the damage was not so easily fixed. These difficulties tended to remain with the fostered children, possibly because they reflected very early impact on brain circuits that under lie basic behaviours.

Nevertheless, the scientists said it was possible that given a long enough recovery period, improvements might be seen in this area too.

Foster parents were recruited in a similar way to those in the United States, said the researchers. They were paid regular visits by social workers, and helped to develop emotional attachments with the children.

In the orphanages, the ratio of staff to children was one to 12 or 15. Staff also worked rotating shifts, so care was impersonal and provided little"psychological investment".

Dr Johnson said a recent World Health Organisation report showed that thousands of children were in orphanages around the world, not just in Eastern Europe. The country with the highest proportion of children under three in institutions was Belgium.

He said there were important lessons to be learned from the findings.

"The simple one is never institutionalise a child," he said. "The only environment that promotes normal development of a child is a normal family environment. But there are interventions that can make a more family-like environment. If children can't be put into foster care then the institution must be as family-like as possible."

Recent research suggests that, in young children at least, the human brain is much more "plastic" and able to change than was previously thought. At what stage the plasticity of the brain ceases is an unanswered fundamental question.

Dr Charles Nelson, from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, another of the investigators, said: "It's possible that plasticity will cease in some domains earlier than in others. Or is the door swinging closed, but never closes completely? Research from animals indicates that it never quite closes."

All of the institutionalised children involved in the study were gradually being transferred to foster homes, said the scientists. Currently, only 17 were still in orphanages.

C Thomas Crosbie Media 2006
<http://www.irishexaminer.com/>

Long-term care 'harms children'

By Paul Rincon
BBC News science reporter, St Louis
Feb. 17, 2006

Placing children in long-term care is in itself "an act of abuse", according to a leading professor of paediatrics.

Speaking at a science conference in St Louis, US, Professor Dana Johnson said that even a week in an institution could be detrimental. TheUniversity of Minnesota scientist said that children placed in thesefacilities could suffer serious physical and emotional health problems. The findings come from an ongoing study of children conducted in Romania.

Professor Johnson, from Minnesota Children's Hospital, said long-terminstitutional care should be a last resort, and then only with a view to placing children with foster families. But he explained that in theBucharest Project, children placed in a more nurturing environment showed considerable improvement.

"The conclusions are that nothing replaces a family," Professor Johnson told the BBC. "Children in institutional care have deteriorations in many things that we want to see children improve in during the earliest years of their life," he said. "Their cognitive abilities are lower, their growth isterrible and their brain development is abnormal as well."

Emotional scars

What is even more surprising is that Professor Johnson puts the problems down to emotional deprivation affecting the children's hormonal balance.The study found that children in institutions fall behind the norm in terms of their stature, brain and weight.

"As children get to two or three years of age, their weight starts to recover, but their height continues to deteriorate," Professor Johnson said. "So up until puberty, you can predict how short children are going to be by the time they have been in the orphanage. They lose about one month of linear growth - or stature - for every three months they have spent in the orphanage. "I think putting a child in long-term institutional care is an act of abuse."

Professor Johnson would like to see an end to all long-term careinstitutions for children.

"There is always going to be a place for short-term facilities. But I think we need to underline 'short-term'. These kids cannot stay in thosefacilities for longer than necessary. "A few days in an institution should be as long as children are asked to endure," he added.

"Children need to be in a family; they need it for their physical and brain development to be in a nurturing environment," Professor Johnson said.

Details of the research were presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/4723158.stm
Published: 2006/02/17 10:58:00 GMT

Adoptive parents are not "child traffickers"

Letter being sent to the full House on 2/15/06.

Adoptive parents are not "child traffickers"

The EU's Baroness Emma Nicholson's consistent and inflammatory false allegations against adoptive parents and adoption advocates have been instrumental in Romania's now active ban on inter-country adoption. Sign onto the letter below to Secretary Rice requesting that she send a letter to several EU leaders, protesting the Baroness' continued damaging attacks on adoption and requesting they take action. (See attached for some of the Baroness' comments.)

Please contact Melissa Clement with Rep. Jo Ann Davis to sign on by COB Friday.


melissa m. clement
legislative assistant
office of rep. jo ann davis (va)
1123 longworth house office building
(202) 225.4261
------------------------------------------------

The Honorable Condoleeza Rice
Secretary of State
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20520-0001
Dear Secretary Rice:
We would like to bring your attention to the damaging effect false allegations by Baroness Emma Nicholson, European Union VP of Foreign Affairs and Shadow Rapporteur for Romania, have had on the welfare of Romanian children, and those American families seeking to adopt them.

As you know, inter-country adoption is now banned in Romania, and 1,100 pending cases that were left incomplete due to the ban are now under review by the Romanian government. It is most likely these cases will not be finalized. It is not a coincidence that these actions were taken following four years of countless false accusations by Baroness Nicholson appearing in print and television. Among these misleading statements included accusations of adoptive parents' involvement in trafficking in children, sexually and physically abusing adoptive children, "baby buying" and "buying" their adoptive children off the internet, selling adoptive children's organs and body parts, and claims that adoptive parents are unfit to adopt in their own countries and consequently go to Romania.

Most recently, the Baroness has gone even further. During the week of February 6, 2006, news reports appeared in Romanian newspapers and televisions news programs with claims that inter-country adoption advocates were members of organized crime, were attempting to prevent Romania from joining the European Union, and that these "advocates" were also terrorists. (Note attached articles.) Lastly, Baroness Nicholson has accused pro-adoption advocacy groups to be well-funded, well-paid, professional lobbyists, when in actuality, these groups, such as "For the Children SOS," are composed of concerned adoptive and "waiting parents."

We are greatly concerned with the damage these inflammatory remarks will have on the Romanian and European citizens who hear them, and worse, believe them. More over, we are worried about the devastating effects this will have on those Romanian children who are waiting to be adopted.

We respectfully request that you send a letter to the following leaders, protesting the Baroness' continued damaging attacks on adoptive parents and requesting that they take action: Josep Borrell, President of the EU; Ursula Plassnick, Foreign Minister of Austria; Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission; Benita Ferrero-Waldner, European Commissioner for External Affairs; Javier Solana, High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy; Olli Rehn, EU Enlargement Commissioner; and Ambassador John Bruton, EU Ambassador to the U.S.

Thank you for your attention to this very important issue. We respectfully request your timely consideration.

Sincerely,

CQ COMMITTEE COVERAGE

CQ COMMITTEE COVERAGE
House International Relations Subcommittee Markup
Feb. 14, 2006

Panel Approves International Relations Resolutions

By Eleanor Stables, CQ Staff

The House International Relations Subcommittee on Europe and Emerging Threats on Tuesday swiftly approved by voice vote two resolutions for full committee consideration.

H Res 673 would urge the government of Belarus to conduct free and fair presidential elections March 19, and expresses support for the efforts of the people of Belarus to establish a full democracy, the rule of law, and respect for human rights.

Subcommittee chairman Elton Gallegly, R-Calif., said democracy in Belarus is suffering as groups critical of the government are being repressed. He said the Belarusian government has refused an impartial investigation of the disappearance of journalists, and urged unimpeded access to the media as part of the free and transparent elections the resolution encourages.

Foreign Adoptions in Romania

H Res 578 would urge the Romanian government to complete the processing of foreign adoption cases pending before the Romanian parliament in June 2004 barred all those not by a child's biological grandparents.

The Romanian law affects 211 cases in which Romanian children had been matched with adoptive parents in the United States, and some 1,500 cases in which children had been matched with prospective parents in Western Europe, the resolution said, noting that "unsubstantiated allegations ... about the fate of children adopted from Romania and the qualifications and motives of those who adopt internationally" had contributed to the Romanian government's restrictions on foreign adoptions.

The resolution also would urge the secretary of State and the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development to work collaboratively with the Romanian government to amend Romania's laws to decrease barriers to adoption.

The resolution also would request that the European Union and its member states not impede Romania's efforts to place orphaned or abandoned children in permanent homes in a manner consistent with Romania's obligations under the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, which Romania ratified and which recognizes that children may benefit by being placed with adoptive parents outside their home countries.

Ranking Democrat Robert Wexler of Florida said Romania's plan to join the EU in 2007 might give the resolution more leverage.

In 1989 it became public that more than 100,000 underfed, neglected Romanian children were living in destitute, inhumane institutions, and in the following years thousands of Romanian orphans were adopted by Americans, Europeans and others.

The United Nations Children's Fund reported in March 2005 that more than 9,000 children a year are abandoned in Romania's maternity wards or pediatric hospitals.

Help Romanian Orphans Unite with American Adoptive Families

This resolution went to the entire House on 2/9/06.

Help Romanian Orphans Unite with American Adoptive Families
Cosponsor H.Res. 578

Dear Colleague:

The children of Romania, and all children, deserve to be raised in loving, permanent families. H.Res. 578 expresses disappointment that the Government of Romania has instituted a virtual ban on intercountry adoptions that has serious implications for the welfare and well-being of orphaned or abandoned children in Romania.

In 1989, the world watched in horror as images emerged from Romania of more than 100,000 underfed, neglected children living in hundreds of squalid and inhumane institutions throughout that country. Americans responded to this humanitarian nightmare with an outpouring of compassion, offering their labor, money, and goods to help Romania improve conditions in these institutions. Thousands of American families also opened their hearts to Romania's children through adoption.

At a September hearing of the U.S. Helsinki Commission, witnesses testified that the situation for Romania's children today is only marginally improved. UNICEF reports that child abandonment in Romania is no different from that occurring 10, 20, or 30 years ago-more than 9,000 children a year are abandoned in maternity wards or pediatric hospitals. Thirty-seven thousand children remain in institutions; nearly 49,000 more live in non-permanent settings in "foster care" or with extended families who took them in only when offered a government stipend. An unknown number of children live on the streets.

In 2001, the Romanian Government declared a moratorium on international adoptions but continued to accept new adoption applications and allowed many to be processed under an exception for extraordinary circumstances. Then, as of January 1, 2005 a new law (no. 273/2004) banned intercountry adoption except in the case of a child's biological grandparent. At the time of the law's enactment, approximately 200 children had been matched with prospective adoptive parents from the United States and were awaiting finalization of their adoptions. In recent months, Romanian Government officials have stated that intercountry adoption would be denied in all of these pending cases.

Despite a lack of adoptive homes available in Romania, the Romanian Government has faced tremendous pressure from the European Commission and influential members of the European Parliament not to allow children to be placed in intercountry adoption. For the sake of innumerable children in need of permanent families, the voice of the Congress must be heard clearly in this transatlantic dialogue on intercountry adoption.

Current cosponsors of H.Res. 578 are Reps. Cardin, Northup, Pitts, Pence, Costello, Burton, Jo Ann Davis, Tiahrt, Bradley, Frank, Norwood and Jim Moran.

To cosponsor H.Res. 578, or for further information, please contact Maureen Walsh at maureen.walsh@mail.house.gov or extension 5-1901.

Sincerely,
/s
Christopher H. Smith
Member of Congress

H. RES. 578
Concerning the Government of Romania's ban on intercountry adoptions and the welfare of orphaned or abandoned children in Romania.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
November 18, 2005

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey (for himself, Mr. CARDIN, Mrs. NORTHUP, Mr. PITTS, Mr. PENCE, Mr. COSTELLO, Mr. BURTON of Indiana, Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS of Virginia, Mr. TIAHRT, Mr. BRADLEY of New Hampshire, and Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on International Relations

RESOLUTION

Concerning the Government of Romania's ban on intercountry adoptions and the welfare of orphaned or abandoned children in Romania.
Whereas following the execution of Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989, it was discovered that more than 100,000 underfed, neglected children throughout Romania were living in hundreds of squalid and inhumane institutions;

Whereas United States citizens responded to the dire situation of these children with an outpouring of compassion and assistance to improve conditions in those institutions and to provide for the needs of abandoned children in Romania;

Whereas, between 1990 and 2004, United States citizens adopted more than 8,200 Romanian children, with a similar response from Western Europe;

Whereas the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported in March 2005 that more than 9,000 children a year are abandoned in Romania's maternity wards or pediatric hospitals and that child abandonment in Romania in `2003 and 2004 was no different from that occurring 10, 20, or 30 years ago';

Whereas there are approximately 37,000 orphaned or abandoned children in Romania today living in state institutions, an additional 49,000 living in temporary arrangements, such as foster care, and an unknown number of children living on the streets and in maternity and pediatric hospitals;

Whereas, on December 28, 1994, Romania ratified the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption which recognizes that `intercountry adoption may offer the advantage of a permanent family to a child for whom a suitable family cannot be found in his or her State of origin';

Whereas intercountry adoption offers the hope of a permanent family for children who are orphaned or abandoned by their biological parents;

Whereas UNICEF's official position on intercountry adoption, in pertinent part, states: `For children who cannot be raised by their own families, an appropriate alternative family environment should be sought in preference to institutional care, which should be used only as a last resort and as a temporary measure. Inter-country adoption is one of a range of care options which may be open to children, and for individual children who cannot be placed in a permanent family setting in their countries of origin, it may indeed be the best solution. In each case, the best interests of the individual child must be the guiding principle in making a decision regarding adoption.';

Whereas unsubstantiated allegations have been made about the fate of children adopted from Romania and the qualifications and motives of those who adopt internationally;

Whereas in June 2001, the Romanian Adoption Committee imposed a moratorium on intercountry adoption, but continued to accept new intercountry adoption applications and allowed many such applications to be processed under an exception for extraordinary circumstances;

Whereas on June 21, 2004, the Parliament of Romania enacted Law 272/2004 on `the protection and promotion of the rights of the child,' which creates new requirements for declaring a child legally available for adoption;

Whereas on June 21, 2004, the Parliament of Romania enacted Law 273/2004 on adoption, which prohibits intercountry adoption except by a child's biological grandparent or grandparents;

Whereas there is no European Union law or regulation restricting intercountry adoptions to biological grandparents or requiring that restrictive laws be passed as a prerequisite for accession to the European Union;

Whereas the number of Romanian children adopted domestically is far less than the number abandoned and has declined further since enactment of Law 272/2004 and 273/2004 due to new, overly burdensome requirements for adoption;

Whereas prior to enactment of Law 273/2004, 211 intercountry adoption cases were pending with the Government of Romania in which children had been matched with adoptive parents in the United States, and approximately 1,500 cases were pending in which children had been matched with prospective parents in Western Europe; and

Whereas Romanian children, and all children, deserve to be raised in permanent families: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives--

(1) supports the desire of the Government of Romania to improve the standard of care and well-being of children in Romania;

(2) urges the Government of Romania to complete the processing of the intercountry adoption cases which were pending when Law 273/2004 was enacted;

(3) urges the Government of Romania to amend its child welfare and adoption laws to decrease barriers to adoption, both domestically and intercountry, including by allowing intercountry adoption by persons other than biological grandparents;

(4) urges the Secretary of State and the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development to work collaboratively with the Government of Romania to achieve these ends; and

(5) requests that the European Union and its member States not impede the Government of Romania's efforts to place orphaned or abandoned children in permanent homes in a manner that is consistent with Romania's obligations under the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption.

Briefing Note on Romanian Human Rights Issues

This is the official briefing from John Mulligan, Chairman, Focus on Romania, to the Secretary General of the European Commission, Catherine Day. A note about 36,000 children still in institutional care - that is not the total number of children under the care of the State. The accurate number is 110,000. This has been brought to the attention of Mr. Mulligan so his report can be revised. Focus on Romania is out of Ireland.

To: Ms Catherine Day, Secretary General, the European Commission.

From: John Mulligan, Chairman, Focus on Romania.

Subject: Briefing note on Romanian Human Rights issues.

I refer to our short discussion in Dublin on Friday 10th February, following your informative summary the state of the EU in 2006. Such briefings are very useful in informing various interest groups as to the challenges facing the Commission, and I found your presentation to be both interesting and informative. Any briefing process however has to have a two-way element in order to be of real value; I hope that some of the queries raised were of equal value in giving you a perspective on the problems of persuading the civil servants within the Commission as to the need to look again at some issues which they may consider as being closed.

As promised the following is a summary of the actual situation on the ground in Romania in the area of institutional reforms and human rights. We welcome the opportunity to provide you with this information, which we hope will be of assistance to you in dealing with the issue of Romania’s accession process. We also hope that your use of this information will help to bring some hope to the tens of thousands of people who have been abandoned not only by their own government but also by the European Union. A unique opportunity to link Romania’s accession process to real reforms, as distinct from the juggling of statistics, is being lost because the Enlargement Commission is paying little more than lip service to this linkage.

The Romanian situation vis-à-vis institutional care is complex, but essentially has three basic elements, as follows.

1. Children under eighteen years of age are the responsibility of the Department of child protection (now known as Children’s rights).

2. ANPH is in charge of adult persons with handicap.

3. An unknown number of persons reside in mental hospitals.

Since January 2005 Social Protection departments within local authorities look after persons in the ANPH and Child Rights categories, but the separate ANPH and Child Rights departments continue to exist at central level. Decisions around mental hospitals are the responsibility of the Health Department.

Resources were applied to the child protection area primarily because EU and international pressure focused on this area. Approximately 36,000 children under 18 still reside in institutional care, and some substantial progress has been made in designing reforms, although these have not always trickled down to the target group. The government used this progress to persuade the European Union that the entire problem was well on a way to a resolution, despite the fact that the larger (and growing) problem of young adults in state care had not been addressed at all. Despite claims to the contrary by EU politicians and officials, the Romanian Government conceded to us as far back as July 2002 that they had no budget and no policies to resolve the problem of adults in state care.

Following that admission, we succeeded in having a project team and a full-time project manager put in place in ANPH, in order to provide a skills pool that could drive the reform process and disseminate the skills and information to the local authorities. We also achieved agreement with the Romanian Government that our proposal to close one institution – at Negru Voda in Constanta County – would be adopted, and that this closure would form a template for the closure of all such institutions. The closure model would consist of a state of the art centre for residential and respite care in the town of Techirghiol, and four group homes in the community around Constanta city, each of which would be home to eight young adults who had been assessed as being capable of semi-independent living. Funding for the main centre would come from ANPH and the local authority, and the four homes would be co-funded by the County Council and our NGO group. This pilot project was adopted as government policy, and it was agreed that this closure process would be complete by mid 2003, although this was later revised to mid 2004. This project has not as of today still been completed; only the group homes element segment as co-funded by us has come to some kind of conclusion, with 16 young adults moved to two of the four new homes in December 2005. The third and fourth homes have just last week entered the construction phase and delivery of these has been promised for August 2006. Building work on the main centre is ongoing, but no firm completion date can as yet be given for this segment.

Current state of the reform process in ANPH:
Following various delays, the construction phase of the pilot project began in late 2003, and now looks to be complete by August 2006. Training modules for the staff of the group homes have been devised by our partners the Aurelia Trust, and are being delivered by Romanian Trainers in line with (revised) target dates. This training project has been agreed with ANPH, and is being funded by the Irish NGOs. A programme of de-institutionalisation is already underway in Negru Voda for beneficiaries in this sector, and again this programme is being funded and managed by the Aurelia Trust.
Training of staff for the main centre at Techirghiol is being managed by ANPH, with subcontracted assistance from an Irish NGO and with financial assistance from the Irish Government through its DCI funding scheme. No rollout of the pilot project has taken place nationally -- in essence, a total of 16 persons out of 23,000 in the care of ANPH have been the beneficiaries of this reform process to date.

Issues in Mental Hospitals:

Along with Amnesty International, Focus on Romania continues to try to bring some kind of attention to the ongoing scandal of Romania’s mental hospitals. A comprehensive Amnesty International report in May 2004 highlighted human rights abuses in the Poana Mare hospital, where deaths from exposure and malnutrition, as well as the use of slave labour, were commonplace. This report was ignored until we raised it at a meeting with the head of the EU delegation (Jonathan Scheele) in late 2005, a meeting that was also attended by senior government officials and MEP Mairead McGuinness. Following that meeting, an announcement was made that that particular facility would close, but no plan exists to actually replace the facility with a more humane regime or with alternatives to institutional care in the mental health sector generally.

As late as 10th January 2006 a report by a Romanian journalist on the newspaper Evenimentul Zilei dealt with another mental health institution, at Urlati in Prahova County. Adult patients were here found naked in cages and being fed through flaps in the cage doors. In addition to these gross human rights abuses detected at this site, a five-year-old boy was found to be living among the adults; he was apparently born to a victim of an unreported rape of a female patient by persons unknown, and the authorities had not reported or detected his presence. This unbelievable level of human rights abuses is happening right now in this and similar institutions, despite many years of EU so-called scrutiny of Romania’s reform process.

The conditions in Romania’s mental hospitals are undoubtedly as bad as anything in the world, but have never been the focus on attention by the EU. The EU position, in general, has been to accept Romanian government reportage of progress at face value, when in reality such progress has consisted largely of the juggling of statistics in order to persuade politicians in Brussels that all was well.

Summary of progress over the last ten or so years:

Institutional care of children: This area has attracted most of the international focus, so almost all resources have been directed at this problem. Plans and strategies exist, but 36,000 children still live in institutions ranging from adequate to appalling. We are aware of locations where a lack of staffing resources is overcome by the use of daily sedation to manage the residents.

Institutional care of adults with handicap: This area has had some international focus, largely as a result of our lobbying. With the exception of the pilot project at Negru Voda, no other meaningful reforms have taken place in this sector. EU politicians, with a few exceptions, have ignored this sector.

Mental hospitals: The EU has never shown an interest in this sector, and when asked, has not even been able to ascertain the nature and extent of the problem. Because the EU shows no interest, the Romanian Government has not targeted this area for reform. Only Amnesty International and a small number of reporters have investigated the extent of the human rights abuses here, which include inadequate nutrition and denial of access to health care, cruel and inhumane treatment, and the use of slave labour.


Problems within the European Commission that hinder the reform process:

In addition to a lack of interest within the Commission (largely due it has to be said to a belief that reform of all these sectors is well underway), we have uncovered a frightening level of misinformation in Brussels. At a meeting in early 2005 with Mr. Dirk Lange and a team from the Romania desk of the Enlargement Commission, we were provided with figures that we knew to be wildly incorrect. However the officials concerned were not prepared to concede that they were wrong, despite our pointing out that the figures quoted by them only a fraction of those provided to us by the Romanian government. They had a point of view that this matter was now closed and could not be reopened for further discussion; in fact we found their approach to our views to be more aggressive and unbending than anything we had ever encountered in Brussels.

The relevant figures given to us at that meeting were as follows:

* No more than 5,000 persons in ANPH institutions
* No children under the age of three years in institutional care in all of Romania.

In March 2005 we ascertained during a meeting with ANPH in Bucharest that the first figure was of the order of 23,000, an almost five fold increase on the Commission figures.

We made enquiries as to the second “fact” within Romania, and we were easily able to ascertain that the sudden reduction in the numbers of infants in institutions was achieved by retaining them in maternity hospitals so as to keep them "off the radar” as far as the EU was concerned. We were able to find this information out easily by simply asking the question of officials in Local Authorities and within the health services, as could have been done by the Commission’s own staff in Romania if they had cared to check. In September 2005 we brought some reporters from Ireland, as well as MEP Mairead McGuinness, to a hospital in Constanta and showed them the extent of this deception.

Our concern around this misinformation relates to the reliance by Parliamentarians on information provided by the civil servants; in the absence of accurate information, how can the politicians make correct decisions in this area?

I trust that this information is of use to you in giving you a broader perspective on this issue than you might be able to get from within the Commission. The desirable end result of this communication process from a human rights standpoint would be the grasping of this unique opportunity to bring some relief to the suffering of the most disadvantage persons in Europe. If we do not deal with this issue in a real way as part of the accession process, we condemn tens of thousands of people with no voice to a lifetime of suffering. It is our belief that they have suffered enough.


12th February 2006

Website: http://www.focusonromania.net

The Orphans Of Our Discontent

From the Bucharest Daily News

The orphans of our discontent
Denisa Maruntoiu

While parents and the Romanian authorities are struggling over the 1,100 orphans still caught in the middle of the convoluted international adoptions conflict, high ranking European officials including the Council of Europe's Deputy Secretary Maud de Boer-Buquicchio and European Parliament Member Baroness Emma Nicholson, are gathering in Bucharest for the annual International Conference on Children's Rights.

The two-day conference starting today, organized under the patronage of the Council of Europe's Ministers' Committee, aims to find viable solutions for all the problems and challenges affecting the world's children, including the thorny international adoption issue. However, the stories of several Romanian adoptees, some happy, some tragic, illustrate how difficult it might be to find a balanced solution when it comes to children and their future.

Every night when Kathleen Richards reads her six-year-old son Alexandru his favorite bedtime story, she thinks about a little girl whom she will never get to kiss good-night. Larisa, 4, is more than 5,000 kilometers away, in Romania, and Kathleen doesn't really know how to tell her son that the girl who should have been his sister will never come home to Keene, New Hampshire. That the toys and presents brought by Santa are all for him. That Larisa will get none.

The Richards' mission is almost impossible, as Alexandru has been waiting for Larisa more than four years already. Kathleen and her husband David do not know how they can make a six year old understand why Romania, which is Alexandru's native country too, rejected their request to adopt Larisa.

Kathleen, a lifelong Keene resident, and David, a city councilor, have been married for 12 years. Immediately after their wedding, when they were both 30 years old, Kathleen found out she could not have a pregnancy because of infertility. Because they desperately wanted a child, they started working on the process of trying to adopt. "The laws required that we wait until we had been married two years before actually starting to look for a child, so in August 1996 we were officially granted the right to adopt from the U.S. or abroad," says Kathleen.

After waiting over four years without any prospective adoption due to long waiting lists, their local adoption agency, Adoptive Families for Children, informed them about the adoption program they had for adopting from Romania.

"The agency, which was match-making the families that desired a child with the foreign children available for adoption, told us that we would likely be able to adopt a young baby from Romania. In November 2000, we were matched with Alexandru, a ten-week old baby, and after six months he became our son," recount the Richards.

But despite the fact their house was now full of toys, baby babbles, and cheerfulness, both Kathleen and David felt something was still missing: a little girl. After realizing they also wanted a sister for Alexandru, they asked their adoption agency to help them find a little Romanian girl that they could adopt as well.

But in 2001, Romania imposed a moratorium on international adoptions. Nevertheless, the Richards, determined to get little Alexandru a sister with whom he could share the same origins and ethnical heritage, did not give up hope. In October 2002, after several months of prayers, the received the good news: The match-making agency told the Richards they were matched with Larisa, a six-month old baby living in a group home in Craiova.

The Richards knew about the moratorium on international adoption that had been enforced in Romania since 2001, but thought that having an actual match with the baby meant that they would still be able to adopt her.

"We told our son about Larisa. We placed photos of her all around our home and in our son's bedroom. We really believed she would be home within about six months or so. In our official letter to the Romanian Authority for Child Protection and Adoption in Bucharest on October 14, 2002, we told the adoption committee: We will think of Larisa lovingly and fondly as we await her physical arrival into our lives. She is already in our hearts!" recounts Kathleen.

The Richards knew the adoption procedures might take a while and decided to ease their waiting period by focusing on the most important thing in their lives: Alexandru."Alexandru is just a super boy. He is intelligent, outgoing, and interested in the world in so many ways. He loves to travel and see new things; he loves tools, planes, military machines, planets, animals, dinosaurs, maps, karate, and more. He is proud to tell people that he was adopted from Romania. We have a large map of the world up in our house and he knows where Romania is," says Richards.

But what seemed like a happy ending turned out to be the beginning of a long, exhausting saga. Time was passing with no news, and the Richards started to worry about Larisa's fate.

After about seven months, when Kathleen and David found out from the media that none of the approval processes for inter-country adoptions had made any progress in Romania, they started to feel that Larisa's adoption was in jeopardy.

"During this time there were many other families that had been matched with Romanian children who were going through the same process. Also, during this time, Romania's process of moving towards EU membership was in full swing, and we realized it could have been one of the reasons why we had no good news," says Richards.

In October 2003, after a year of uncertainties, the Richards wrote a very detailed and lengthy letter asking anyone who could to help them bring Larisa home. They e-mailed the letter to the President of the United States George Bush, Vice President Cheney, former U.S. Presidents Clinton and Carter.

An excerpt from the letter reveals their despair and bitterness: "Please, please, please, talk to the European Union. Please ask the European officials to set aside the moratorium temporarily or forever. Please ask them to understand that the new EU standards will go into place, in time, but, in the meantime these children cannot wait for politics to be played out. Please ask all those who can make a difference not to wait another minute, don't wait until next month, or two months from now. Do something now. Every day counts in the life of a baby.

"Nonetheless, the Richards never heard back from anyone, so they decided to ask for the help of their local senators and congressmen. "During 2003 and 2004, we had our local lawmakers inquire about a resolution to the pending adoption cases. They asked for the help of the U.S. President and any officials in the world that they thought could influence a positive outcome for the children and families," recounts Kathleen.

But in May 2004, after almost two years of nonstop struggle, disaster struck: The Richards received a letter from the Romanian authorities, telling them that their adoption had not been denied officially, but that the new laws on adoption required the adopting family to be a relative.

"Of course, we were not a relative of Larisa, so our hopes were pretty much dashed at this point. We felt that Larisa would not be able to come home to us, but we would not give up hope in trying to help our little girl," says Kathleen Richards.

In June 2004, the Richards made one last desperate gesture and wrote a letter to the President of the National Authority for Child Protection and Adoption, Gabriela Coman, pleading for their little girl to be able to come home. "We told her how our son, who was also adopted from Romania, was already calling Larisa 'baby sister' and how he was telling people he is a big brother. We asked her to reconsider our petition to adopt Larisa, as she really was our baby girl," says Richards.

The answer to their letter came after a year and a half.

In mid-December 2005, the adoption agency called to inform them that Larisa had been adopted by a Romanian family. "We were surprised, but very happy for Larisa. We had been praying for Larisa to have a family for all of these years. We had hoped it was our family, and it did break our hearts that it wasn't. But, we are just so happy that Larisa now has a mom and dad, and that she has a chance for a life filled with love and hugs and kisses," says Richards.

The Richards know that they will never actually have a chance to meet Larisa face-to-face, as all the details about the girl are now confidential. However, both Kathleen and David are sure they will always feel like Larisa's mom and dad, as even if they did not get the chance to meet Larisa in person, the little girl in the pictures, whom they talked and dreamed about for four years, found her way into their souls and minds.

"We will always, always, always have Larisa in our hearts. She will never grow up in the few photographs we have of her. We do imagine her as she is now, a sweet dark-haired, wide-eyed girl who is almost 4 years old now. Our son really wanted to be a big brother, and that is probably the worst part of all of this. He is an only child, and that is fine, but it would have been so much better for him to have a sister who would be part of his life," concluded Kathleen Richards, her voice trembling.

What went wrong: A history of abuses

The Richards' story reveals only one side of the complex inter-country adoption puzzle, still not solved for Romania.

A few years ago, Romania was one of the largest sources of adoptable children. Following the fall of the communist regime in 1989, Romania became known for horrifying scenes of starving, neglected children in state orphanages. When the tormenting images of withered boys and girls, with their heads shaved to prevent the spread of lice, were broadcast all around the world, people of different nations responded with various types of help, including adoptions, 8,213 of which took place in the United States alone between 1990 and 2004.

Thousands of families, shocked by the misery of the Romanian babies, started to pay thousands of dollars to adopt a child and save it from the ramshackle orphanages. Under the Romanian law at that time a substantial amount of the money was meant to be pumped back into improving the childcare system and financing the closure of hundreds of children's homes. But the orphans' tragic situation also opened the door to less scrupulous people, who soon realized that international adoptions were the perfect way to make some easy money. And Romania, freshly free-from-communism, with a hunger for money and a lack of capitalist experience, became a profitable black market for child trafficking.

Several investigations initiated by European officials found that in many cases money had gone to middlemen and officials "at every level".

In addition, adoption agencies were accused of paying birth parents to sign away their parental rights, sometimes approaching the birth mothers while they were still in the maternity ward. The investigations' conclusions stirred fierce criticism of the country's childcare system by the European Parliament's special rapporteur for Romania, Baroness Emma Nicholson, who sparked a public debate in May 2001 with the publication of her report into the system, in which she cited "persistent abandonment of children, child abuse and neglect" and "child trafficking", adding that the "fundamental rights of children have been widely abused in Romania in recent years". Nicholson said that the country's childcare system was corrupt "from top to bottom", and recommended that Romania be excluded from the accession process to the EU if a thorough investigation and overhaul of the system failed to take place.

In addition, Nicholson successfully lobbied for a moratorium on international adoptions of Romanian children, except in cases of children with special needs, which was enforced in June 2001. But despite the ban and Romania's promises to spare no efforts in tackling corruption and improve the legislation on child protection, a series of new scandals involving adoptions shocked and angered both the media and governments worldwide, after 2001.

The first setback came to light in January 2004, when the media revealed Romania had sent 105 children for adoption to Italy despite the ban on international adoptions. Nicholson strongly condemned the incident as a "flagrant breach of the UN Convention of the rights of the child", accusing the Romanian Prime Minister Adrian Nastase of closing a secret deal with his Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi to continue to deliver Romanian babies to Italy for adoption. Following the controversy which came at a delicate moment for the government, as Nicholson was drafting a report for the European Parliament on Romania's readiness for EU accession at the time, several MEPs called for the suspension of EU entry talks with Romania.

In November 2004, a new scandal involving a nine-year-old boy who had been adopted from a Romanian orphanage by an American citizen broke out, outraging the international media.

37-year old William D. Peckenpaugh from Marion County, Oregon, was accused of years-long sexual abuse of his son, after a sexually graphic video was found in a camera which had been returned to an electronics store. Peckenpaugh, who had completed the adoption in 2001 when the boy was six years old, was arraigned on six counts of first-degree sodomy, two counts of first-degree sexual abuse and for using a child in the display of sexually explicit conduct.

The 9-year-old boy was placed in the custody of the Department of Human Services and remained in a foster home in Oregon.

In December 2005, Peckenpaugh pleaded guilty to all 33 charges and was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Another sad story caught the media and governments' attention in 2005, when a Romanian-born girl, Alexandra Austin, recounted how the Canadian couple who had adopted her in 1991, when she was nine years old, sent her back to Romania after only five months because they had adopted another baby from Romania and no longer wanted Alexandra.

Austin, now 23, told the media how she had been stateless for the past 14 years as the Romanian authorities had refused to recognize her as a Romanian, while Ottawa said she did not have Canadian citizenship either. And because her identity was not clear, Austin was denied medical care or education, leaving her with only a Grade 3 educational level. "Nobody should ever do this to a child. I've lost my childhood and my identity", Austin told the media.

Struggle goes on for 1,100 children

Since June 2004, however, in an effort to stamp out corruption and abuses against children once and for all, Romania has passed new legislation cutting off all foreign adoptions except those by grandparents living abroad. Child orphan visas have fallen from 1,122 in 2000 to 57 in 2004.

The new law, which came into effect in January 2005 and states that international adoptions are "the last recourse" in protecting children who are orphans or have been abandoned, giving "absolute priority" to Romanian couples, has affected more than 200 U.S. families that were in the process of adopting a Romanian baby, stirring criticism on the other side of the Atlantic.

The U.S. State Department has accepted that most countries that allow inter-country adoptions first try to place orphans with extended family, then with unrelated families in the same region, then with other citizens elsewhere in the country, and only then with foreign parents.

However, several U.S. officials have said that although the best interests of the child have played a large part in recent procedural changes by some countries, rising national pride has also played a role, suggesting the new Romanian laws on adoption are result of pressure from the European Union.

Many U.S. officials have spoken out against the law, claiming that children remain in orphanages because not enough Romanian parents have the means or the desire to adopt a child.

In addition, Washington said it wants Romania, which hopes to join the European Union in 2007, to handle adoption petitions registered before the ban involving about 1,100 Romanian orphans and abandoned children.

A spokesman for the U.S. State Department, Adam Ereli, called on the Romanian authorities to set up a "legal and transparent mechanism" to process the existing applications.

In mid December 2005, the European Parliament's special rapporteur for Romania, Pierre Moscovici, also called on Bucharest to resolve cases begun before the moratorium, "taking into account the real emotional suffering of the adoptive parents." The European Parliament also stressed the Romanian government should resolve these cases "with the goal of allowing inter-country adoptions to take place, where justified and appropriate."

In their calls, the U.S. officials invoke the universal principle of a loving, reunited family as being the fundamental grounds for each decision making process that involves a child.

Their pleas are supported by dozens of happy stories like the one of 15-year-old Jonathan Peter Douglas Yourtee.

Jonathan, Jon for short, was adopted from Romania in 1991 by Edward and Elaine Yourtee, a U.S. couple living in Windham, New Hampshire. He had been abandoned in the town of Constanta when he was just few days old.

But Jon has been trying to forget the old said days. He is now a happy freshman in a Catholic high school, whose life other than school means music, baseball, and skiing, sailing, and aggressive inline rollerblading.

"I have a passion to play piano, clarinet, hand bells, and try to play anything that is put in front of me. I would like to go to college at Berklee School of Music, and when I grow up, my dream job is to have a permanent professorship at Berklee, teaching music," he recounts.

Jon is as happy and vivid as a teenager could be with one exception. "As I was born right after the fall of the communism, I had horrible conditions to deal with as a newborn in the hospital. As a result of not having the nourishment that I needed, and not enough maternal attention when I was a baby, I have had a very mild condition called Reactive Attachment Disorder (a condition in which individuals have difficulty in forming loving, lasting relationships), for which I am getting help," says Jon.

Other than that, Jon believes he gets to have all of the opportunities that he ever could have dreamed of.

"I have a few close friends, and I also have lots of people supporting me. Some of my friends are children that have been adopted from Romania too," he says.

Although he is a happy and optimistic boy, Jon often thinks about the life he could have had if he wouldn't have been adopted. "I probably wouldn't have lived. When I think about what my life would have probably been, I think of living on the street, having to steal for my food," says Jon.

Nevertheless, Jon wishes to visit Romania. "I would like to see where I was born, and see Constanta, and also see the Transylvanian mountains. I would love to ski there," he confesses.

In addition, Jon says he is much attached to the Romanian orphans as he has often helped the Nobody's Children organization to provide medical and humanitarian resources for needy children throughout the world, including Romania. Nobody's Children, a tax-exempt organization that relies primarily on small private donations, local fundraising events, and support from churches and community organizations, was founded by his parents in 1991 as a result of their experience in Romania while adopting Jon.

"I have helped Nobody's Children by packing boxes, playing piano at different press conferences, and playing piano at our annual fund raiser, the Harvest of Hope," explains Jon.

Despite being only 15 years old, Jon has strong opinions when it comes to Romania's policies on international adoptions. "I think that the abandoned children of Romania should have a chance to be adopted internationally, if they are not adopted by a Romanian family. I also advise the Romanian authorities to allow international families to adopt Romanian children because the children would get to feel what it is like to actually have a life where they are loved by a family, because without love, it is not really a life," he says.

Jon is thoroughly American, but he is Romanian by birth and feels he must do something for the children in Romania who he thinks still desperately need help.

"I have a message for the Romanian government: I pray that you do the right thing and let these children come home. I light a candle almost everyday and pray almost every day for the children of your/our country," Jon says, adding he cannot finish his story without also sending a message to all the Romanian orphans."Don't give up! Life is like a roller coaster. A roller coaster has ups and downs just like life. But eventually the ups come out on top of the downs on a roller coaster, and that is exactly what happens in life," Jon concludes.

Government, not willing to change the new law on adoptions

However, according to the Romanian authorities, the non-stop pro-adoption lobby initiated by the U.S. officials and families has much to do with the fact that the U.S. authorities have mostly got in touch with the emotional and individual side of the international adoption issue.

The head of the Romanian Office for Adoptions, State Secretary Theodora Bertzi considers that there are many important, unknown details about the international adoption issue which should also be taken into account.

"During the moratorium, the Romanian authorities have approved 1,115 international adoption requests. All of these cases were considered exceptional, meaning they complied with a set of criteria," explained Bertzi. The criteria were established by the National Authority for Child Protection, but were never made public and were used as instruments by the special group that was entitled to decide which cases were special.

The remaining 1,399 requests, made by 1,104 families (several families made multiple requests) were not approved because they did not comply with the adoption criteria. "For example, one of the criteria stated that the child should have been older than three. The authorities considered that children under the age of three had high chances of being adopted by Romanian families or taken back by their biological families," said Bertzi. However, out of 1104 requests, 800 were for children under the age of three.Bertzi cannot explain why the Richards, who wanted to adopt a six-month baby, were not immediately informed that their request would never be approved as the girl was not old enough to be put up for international adoption.

"It is very hard for me to explain why some things were not done as they should have been. There was a time when the adoption issue was debated at a high level, among prime-ministers, and children were given away for the sake of bilateral relations between various countries. But we don't want this anymore. Children shouldn't be a means of trade for political privileges," stressed Bertzi.

Another very important concept, which seems to have created much confusion among foreign officials, is that of the "pipeline case".

A pipeline case is one in which the request has been approved, and adoption procedures have been initiated but then stopped. "But none of these 1,104 requests were initially approved, so they cannot be labeled as pipeline-cases," said Bertzi, adding that everyone should also know that the Romanian government has never promised to approve all international adoption requests.

In addition, 103 of the requests were for children who were not adoptable at the time of the request, Bertzi pointed out.

According to the previous law on adoptions, an adoptable child was one who either had no parents or whose biological parents had been deprived of their rights as parents. A child could be put up for adoption if the biological parents gave up their rights in court. "But these 103 children were non-adoptable, which means the families were not even supposed to know about them, or to have information about them. Despite this, it seems those who were mediating international adoptions somehow found out about them and informed the families. The mediators had information about the children because they were probably linked to certain persons working in the Romanian adoption system," said Bertzi, adding that the Hague Convention clearly states that no information about a non-adoptable child is to be made public.

According to Bertzi, the mediators of international adoptions should also be taken into account when analyzing the problem. The most common mediators for international adoptions are adoption agencies.

But even if they are licensed to mediate the process, not all adoption agencies are capable of properly handling an international adoption case, and that is mostly because they lack accurate information on the children put up for adoption, and the specific legislation of the children's native countries.

However, not many agencies refuse an international case as such cases are very profitable. The average cost for an inter-country adoption, which usually includes agency fees, travel expenses, as well as the fees required by the country from which you are adopting, is between twelve and thirty thousand dollars. The adoption agencies' fees vary between 1,500 dollars and 10,000 dollars, depending on the case.

"I know that many families have spent great amounts of money trying to adopt a child. But sometimes it is just not our fault. Sometimes the adoption agencies might be the ones who make the mistakes," said Bertzi.

Turning to the criticism made against the new legislation on adoptions, Bertzi says this is not justified at all.

"The previous law on adoptions took the child away from its biological family very easily. The law stated that if the parents had not visited their child for six months, then these parents are to be deprived of their parental rights. Instead of trying to reunite them, the authorities' main preoccupation was to break the relationship between the child and the mother. And it was wrong!" said Bertzi.

On the other hand, the current law tries to do everything possible to reunite the child with its biological family, the state secretary believes. "Social workers are compelled to spare no effort in convincing the parents or other members of the family to take and raise the child. Only if all attempts fail can the child can be put up for adoption," said Bertzi.

Bertzi knows that both the moratorium and the new law on adoptions have broken the hearts of many moms and dads. She doesn't expect these parents to agree with the government's approach to international adoptions, but she hopes they will some day understand that the authorities only care about the welfare of children.

"I cannot tell the Richards much about Larisa, but I can tell them she is now with the Romanian family that wants to adopt her. The adoption will probably be finalized soon, as her new family loves her and she is healthy and happy," said Bertzi.

However, the pro-international adoption lobby initiated by the U.S. is likely to continue, as only in the past two months two top U.S. officials have called on Bucharest to reconsider the law banning inter-country adoptions.

At the end of December 2005, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Consular Affairs Maura Harty organized a video-conference stressing that the main concern of the U.S. government is that hundreds of children have been caught up in the middle of a legislative process which has left them with no chance of being integrated into loving families. Harty also said the new law on adoptions should at least include some provisions about the adoption cases initiated before the 2001 moratorium. "The U.S. State Department urges the Romanian government to identify a legal mechanism that could solve the international adoption pipeline cases as soon as possible," said Harty.

On January 10, another U.S. high official, Democratic Congressman Robert Wexler came to Romania to plead for the resumption of international adoptions. Wexler met with President Traian Basescu and Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu, hoping to make them understand the suffering of an American family who had been trying for three years to adopt two Romanian twin girls, the biological sisters of the Springers' daughter Gabriella, adopted from Romania eight years ago.

The new U.S. ambassador to Romania, Nicholas Taubman, supported the same position, underlining that local authorities need to solve the requests they received before the ban.

Nevertheless, Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu recently backed the legislation, underlining that no children will be entrusted to foreign families if they can find homes in Romania.

"I feel obliged to repeat that Romanian law since January 1, 2005, cannot be changed because it is perfectly suited to European requirements, with a view to the superior interest of the child. Those who have made applications after the moratorium came into effect should have known that they were taking a risk," Tariceanu said.