FLORENCE NICHOLAS AND HYPOCRITICAL ROMANIA

FLORENCE NICHOLAS AND HYPOCRITICAL ROMANIA

May 8, 2006
Jurnalul National
By: Ralu Filip

After 16 years, Romania still isn't disposed to decide for herself the fate of her abandoned children (orphans). She doesn't want to, she doesn't know how, or worse, she uses this serious and delicate problem in order to gain the support of functionaries and parliamentarians in Europe. Although Romania claims to desire the good of the children, she has not made even the smallest effort towards a precise application of a fundamental principle: the superior interest of the child. No one knows what is behind this principle, nor are there written regulations for applying it. With all this, in the name of the best interest of the child, government makes decisions that are both absurd and ill-fated with regard to the future of thousands of children. Florence Nicholas had no way to know these things. No one told her that in Romania aging legends become myths which is the case with international adoptions. Therefore, she didn't know that for 16 years there was periodically unmasked an eternal but unproven trafficking and that foreigners who want to adopt are not pleasing to the press.

Florence Nicolas has wanted to adopt an Romanian child who had been abandoned by his biological parents. She followed the legal procedure which was in force at the time and which also recognized her right to solicit this adoption as well as the right of the child to have a family. She waited for four years and in the end, the child which she wanted, was to be adopted by a Romanian family. The ever vigilant press accused this French actress of pressuring the Justice Department merely because she exercised certain civil rights. This same press breathed easier at the moment in which the Romanian judicial system defeated "the actress Florence Nicolas". Concerning this wonderful Romanian family, not one word was said. Who are they? What do they do? How do they make a living? And in what conditions do they live? Because the press did not furnished this essential information, we are not convinced that the best interests of this child were fulfilled "somewhere" in Prahova county rather than in Paris.

The case of Florence Nicolas is not unique. There are hundreds of families from the U.S. and Europe in this same situation, who submitted their adoption file before and during the moratorium instituted by the former government, that is, before law 273/2004 entered into force, a law which chained these orphans to their inherited land, snatching away the chance for many of them to have parents and to be loved. These files do not technically fall under the new law and as a consequence must be resolved legally. This is why certain international institutions (the Helsinki Commission) as well as some europarliamentarians have requested that the Romanian government to resolve this problem, and they are both correct and moral in these procedures.

How did the blocking of international adoptions change the lives of these abandoned children? Do they live better? Are they enjoying much more affection? From this point of view, not one governmental institution nor the otherwise vigilant press has publicized even one report or at least an investigation. And they are not able to report this because the statistics are still negative. Abandonments remain at the same level. (therefore international adoptions were not the problem, even though Mrs. Nicholson speculated that there were the cause). National adoptions have not grown spectacularly. In exchange, the number of street children, abused children, and children who have disappeared increases. The murder of children increases, as well as the number of children who quit school. As a consequence, how is the Romanian government respecting the best interest of a child without a family? By forcing him via a law to live at any cost in his land of birth? Playing God?

The worst thing is the blindness which the press exhibits when faced with certain extremely grave situations like transforming the subsidies for poor families into foster care and social assistance. It is easier for them to accuse Florence Nicolas than to check up on the conditions in which hundreds of abandoned children live who have been placed in foster care. It is easier to nourish the public with illusions labeling foreigners who wish to adopt Romanian children rather than to ask why social workers or substitute families are interested in adopting only when they risk the certain loss of even a small income. Is no one tormented by even a simple question: does Florence Nicolas love the children more than the families chosen by CPS Prahova in the name of the best interest of the child, and more than the judiciary system of Romania? It is definite that what these children lack more than anything is affection. But Mrs. Nicholson, the press, the government of Romania and the parliament of Romania never think about this--affection.