April 25th EU Hearing Notes on Adoption

Summary of Hearing on Romanian Inter-country Adoptions and Orphan Crisis

April 25, 2006 Brussels, Belgium EU Headquarters

Hearing sponsored by:
Dr. Charles Tannock MEP United Kingdom
Frederique Ries MEP Belgium
Claire Gibault MEP France
Jean-Marie Cavada MEP France

MEP's present:
Baroness Emma Nicholson MEP UK (and 3 assistants)
Hiltrud Breyer MEP Germany (and her assistant)
Anna Gomes MEP Portugal
Cristina Gutierrez MEP Spain
Alejandro Cercas MEP Spain (and his assistant)
Allesandro Battilocchio MEP Italy15 various MEPs and their assistants who were not identified

Romanian Senators/ EU observers present:
Senator Radu Tirle
Senator Silvia Ciomei

Dr. Tannock opened the hearing with a brief overview of the pending adoption issues and the concern by EU Parliamentarians that these adoptions were being denied without clear and rational justification and that the reports coming out of Romania as to the welfare of abandoned children was not as positive as it was being portrayed by some individuals. He then acknowledged Baroness Emma Nicholson and gave her a chance to express her views on the subject. She immediately expressed concern over the invitation to the event to all MEPs because it used a photograph of a child who was denied inter-country adoption as "advertising for the meeting", that it was illegal to do so, that permission was needed from the guardian of the child, and that the child was in the process of being domestically adopted.

In rebuttal, Linda Robak, NGO director of For The Children SOS, stated that the Baroness has used the images of Romanian abandoned children to promote her own fundraising campaigns and in the press, that we did have permission from the guardian, and that both the guardian and the pending parents were sitting in the room and the child was not in the process of being domestically adopted. She then called on Nannette Gonzalez, a Bucharest NGO who placed the child in foster care to speak.


Nannette Gonzalez rebuffed the comments of Mrs. Nicholson by telling her that the child, to her recent knowledge, was not being domestically adopted and that she was severely handicapped (spinal bifida and club feet which have entailed several surgeries and ongoing physical therapy with more surgeries to come) and stated that there are still thousands of babies being abandoned and growing up in state hospitals. Ms. Gonzalez shared the difficulties of trying to help abandoned handicapped babies find a place to live in private foster care that her foundation offers. She shared how the little girl in the picture is only in temporary foster care because no Romanian family will take her in with the serious medical problems that she has. An American family, Scott and Kathy Rosenow, who filed to adopt her were denied.

In summary, the Baroness took the microphone 5 times (Tannock was counting).

The Baroness continued to restate her opinion that inter-country adoptions were not a viable means of helping Romanian children in crisis and that the Romanian system was a model of child protection. (Later she told several NGO directors that any form of adoption was not as good of a plan as institutionalization in foster care and group homes for children!) The Baroness also expressed the opinion that the institutions and high ranking officials that have spoken in favor of the inter-country adoptions being resumed in Romania (i.e. the Helsinki Commission, the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, the current EU rapporteur for Romania and the Congress of the United States of America) were "irrelevant."

For some unknown reason, the Baroness also felt the need to share that she "is a Christian" and that the Bible says "to not look at the speck of dust in the others eye before one looks at the rock in ones own eye."

The misquotation of Matthew 7:3-5 brought laughter from some of the audience and looks of confusion from others. She also stated that Americans should look to their own country to adopt because they have 650,000 children in government care. (Note: Just for the record, the figures are 600,000 children in government care and 120,000 of those children are available for adoption.)

Romanian Senator, Radu Tirle, was then called on to speak. (Linda Robak, Bruce Thomas, Lily Romine, Thierry LeBon, and Fernando Manzano had dinner with him the previous evening and had requested he testify at the hearing) He spoke passionately about the desperate situation in his country concerning child welfare and described a hospital he is building in Aradea to care for abandoned children and destitute families. He urged the EU parliament to be wary of Romanian politicians who were corrupt and merely talkers. He clearly expressed his desire that the current 1100 pipeline cases be resolved fairly and that Romania be urged to re-look at each individual case in the superior interest of each child. He expressed concern that high level Romanian authorities are concerned that bad publicity from this issue and that finalizing these adoptions would affect their chances for ascension into the EU by January 1, 2007. He also stated this was affecting their rush to resolve these cases hastily. Dr. Tannock reassured the Senator that accession was not at stake here but the superior interests of the children and their human rights issues that needed to be addressed.


Ms. Rolie Post from the Netherlands, who is a desk officer for the Director General of the Enlargement Commission, then spoke. She began by dramatically requesting that she not be filmed or photographed by the journalists present. Then she touted that Romania's child welfare system - per her own 45 trips to Romania - had taken care of the former problems and that there were no longer any daunting issues in child welfare in Romania today. She then commented that the children present at the hearing should be in school. Thereafter, she tried to use her influence to lobby the MEPs present to see her point of view. In a conversation with MEP Ries afterwards she denounced the professionals and eye witnesses from Romania as "do-gooders" and tried to convince the parliamentarians present that she was the only "real expert" on this subject present at the hearing. (Note from Linda: I was recently told by a European journalist that Post has taken a 9 month sick leave. I find it interesting that she was able to leave her "sick bed" and testify.)

Bruce Thomas, a permanent resident of Romania with 12 years of professional experience in child welfare on the field in Romania reported to the contrary. Mr. Thomas is the director of an NGO that spends over one million Euros annually in support from the United Kingdom, Holland, Romania, and the USA to abandoned children in Targu Mures, Romania. He stated that the crisis has only escalated since the moratorium on inter-country adoptions has taken effect. He cited representative cases of abandoned and orphaned children who had been recently raped, molested, beaten, sodomized, and abused in many other ways and the indifference of local authorities to act to resolve these horrific abuses. He also shared legitimate and documented cases of abandoned children who were being forced to return to abusive birth homes by child protection authorities who would prefer to clear children off of their long rolls than to offer practical and safe child welfare services. Evidence presented also showed the difficulties presented to Romanian nationals pursuing adoption. In conclusion, Thomas kindly requested that the MEPs of the European Union to assist the still suffering abandoned children of Romania by creating a working group that could come to Romania and investigate the human rights violations to mostly Roma children in both old and new state child welfare institutions. The goal would be to challenge Romania to European Union standards in reality and not merely on paper.
He also spoke out in favor of inter-country adoption and the finalization of the pending cases.

A former Romanian orphan, Sarah Romine, who was abandoned at birth and is now 16 years old and adopted into an American family, testified of her serious developmental issues and permanent brain damage because of being abandoned and residing in a state orphanage for the first two years of her life. She stated that she was able to overcome those issues because she was allowed to be raised in a loving home instead of in state care in Romania. She urged the MEPs to listen to her voice as the voice of the tens of thousands of abandoned children still residing in substandard state care in Romania today. She concluded her testimony by saying had she not been adopted she would now be dead. (Sarah participated in an interferon study after being diagnosed with Hepatitis C and was cured)

MEP Claire Gibault then spoke and urged the Romanian Secretary of State over the committee for Adoptions, Teodora Bertzi, to respond as to why she sent out a memo urging local Child Protection Department authorities to ban communication between pending adoptive parents and their prospective children and their Romanian caregivers.

MEP Jean-Marie Cavada then read a statement in French that he later reiterated at the press conference that called on the Romanian government to allow the pending adoptions to be finalized and shared his experience as a child during World War II when he was forced to live with 5 different families and the pain of not having a permanent family or home. (Note: a translation of his and Gibault's written statements is forthcoming)

Fernando Manzano, the President of a Spanish association representing Spanish pending parents named ACABAR, then spoke and strongly defended the legality of the actions taken by Spanish families and in their filing for adoptions. He also refuted the comparison that Rolie Post made between the Romanian child welfare system and the rest of the European countries. Ms. Post reported that in Spain there are 9000 children abandoned every year. However, in reality, Spanish families adopt 5000 children every year and that in Spain, for any individual children who are adoptable, there are thousands of families who want to adopt and have to wait in some cases up to five years to do it.

MEP Frederique Ries addressed the need for the pending cases to be reviewed again and finalized where appropriate. (I'm still awaiting a copy of her statement and will post it when it's received). She then called on pending parents from France, Alain and Christine Roques. The Roques detailed (in French) their battle to adopt their children, Catalin and Marin, and presented photographs of the many visits they have made to see her in Romania over the years and official documents from both the French and Romanian government which led them to believe they were a "legally accepted dossier".

Anna Gomes (MEP-Portugal) and Cristina Gutierrez (MEP-Spain) also spoke. MEP Gomes proposed to go to Romania on a fact finding mission with MEPs to see the true situation. She stated that she had been alerted by some of her constituents in Portugal about some of these serious issues. MEP Gutierrez lauded the Baroness for her work to stop child trafficking in Romania but expressed concern over the serious evidence of abuse and the failure of the new child welfare legislation being presented in the hearing.

Scott and Kathy Rosenow, an American family from Ohio who are the pending parents of the child who whose photo was used in the MEP invitation, and whom have 10 adopted children, most with special medical needs, testified that they are still hoping that the now four year old Augustina can come home with them one day. They have also started an NGO that works internationally to help find families for severely handicapped and medically challenged children and they shared their experiences in the difficulty of placing these children in adoptive homes, in particular in Romania.

Due to only one of the 5 Italian/Swiss families being fluent in English, and the Italian MEP assistant who was going to translate having to leave, they handed out copies of their testimony in English and an Italian adoptive father, Marco Cappellari, spoke on their behalf and detailed their collective battle to adopt the children they wait for and love. The Italian families also gave Linda Robak copies of their dossiers, photos, documents, and letters to present to MEPs in her meetings the following day.

Jean-Pierre Clement and Nadine Piroud (separate families, not a couple) of France came with their two children, both adopted from Romania. They were upset about being characterized by the Romanian government and some media outlets as "child traffickers and of selling adopted children's organs." Clement stated that the facts are that they are taking great care of the two special needs children they adopted. They also said that they and other French families have all been involved in developing and helping NGO's in Romania to continue to offer aid to the children still in state care and that the state of Romania cannot and does not provide. He shared the difficulties that they have gone through willingly to take care of their two children's severe medical issues and disorders due to the abandonment and neglect from the institutions in which they were housed in their formative years. Gabriel, his 10 year old son, asked if he could speak at the end. After sitting through two and half hours of discussion and testimony in a language he did not understand, he said in perfect French, "I am happy to have a daddy, a mummy, an aunt, some cousins, and I would like that all the children in Romania who are supposed to be adopted to be allowed to go out."

Romanian NGO director, attorney, and social worker, Corina Cava, testified to the abuse she has witnessed of children brutalized by birthparents and forced to "reintegrate" with them to their further detriment. She also testified to the consistent number of infants still being abandoned in state hospitals. Her testimony validated the recent UN report stating that the abandonment rate in Romania has not changed in the past thirty years and 9000 children are still being abandoned annually. She shared that there is a very antagonistic relationship with local child protection authorities and NGO's who are hands on working to help those children at risk, mostly Roma, and stand up for their human rights that are being violated. MEP Brewer from Germany then spoke up and said that she would be behind this campaign to get these pipeline cases honestly addressed and finalized, that we have her full support, and that she would like to see an investigation into the abuse and corruption allegations. (Note from Linda: After the hearing she told me she was very angry with the way Nicholson had acted at the hearing - "as if she is a superior being and controls Parliament" and the way that Nicholson addressed her at the hearing. As Breyer has served as a Parliamentarian for 16 years, one of the longest, she was furious to be treated by Nicholson with such disrespect.)

Silvia Ciomei, also a Romanian senator, then expressed that her government was very concerned with accession into the EU and that they had followed all of the mandates that they had received via former liaison Baroness Emma Nicholson. (Later, Senator Ciomei chided Romanian NGO Corina Caba privately in Romanian. She asked her why she was trying to "make trouble" for the Romanian government and wanted to know why Caba did not want Romania into the EU. Ms. Caba responded that she did want Romania in the EU, but she wanted the seriousness of these abuse and neglect issues to be addressed because no one at the local level in Romania was willing to act on these serious human rights abuses.) The hearing lasted for over 3 three hours and 2 who were scheduled to formally speak - NGO Noemi De Weerd and Linda Robak - had no time to do so , other than Robak's comments to Baroness Nicholson, as there was another hearing scheduled for the room.

The press conference immediately followed. There were journalists present from Romania, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain, and other international outlets. Dr. Charles Tannock MEP, Frederique Ries MEP, Claire Gibault MEP, Jean-Marie Cavada MEP, and Linda Robak all spoke. Tannock made it very clear to the press that Romania's ascension was not at stake or the issue. They focused on the 1100 pipeline cases and asked for these cases to be reviewed with the best interest of each child in mind. They let it be known that no other EU country has such a strict inter-country adoption law and asked the Romanian government to consider making their law more flexible. They also let it be known that the EU had been misrepresented by the former rapporteur, Mrs. Emma Nicholson, who used her influence to lobby the Romanian government towards these extreme laws banning international adoptions. They stated uniformly that the position of the EU was not in favor of a ban of inter-country adoptions as is evidenced in the availability of adoption in 24 of the 25 current member states. MEP Cavada shared his personal story again of being placed in several foster homes during World War II and the devastating effect that it had on him as a young man. His desire was to save children from the effects of temporary care and to help them at all costs to find a permanent place to call home in a family. In conclusion, MEP Tannock stated that very high ranking Romanian government officials recently paid him a visit. They urged him to let this issue lie and promised to resolve it after Romania's ascension into the EU on January 1, 2007. Dr. Tannock, in very clear and direct terms, told them that this was not an option. He said that he would not allow at-risk children to be allowed to continue in their suffering for almost another year so that politics and economics could take a front seat.

The press conference concluded with reporters interviewing individual MEPs and parents.