1,300 CHILDREN DISAPPEARED FOLLOWING THEIR INTERNATIONAL ADOPTION BETWEEN 1997 AND 2005

It has been proven that many parents had sent in their reports in the past and the Romanians just "couldn't find them". The adoptions agencies here in the USA rechecked with all their families and contacts in Romania to ensure there was no problem.

1,300 CHILDREN DISAPPEARED FOLLOWING THEIR INTERNATIONAL ADOPTION BETWEEN 1997 AND 2005
By: Adina Stefan

The head of the Romanian Office for Adoption, Theodora Bertzi, announced that more than 1,300 Romanian children adopted by families abroad between 1997 and 2005, have disappeared without a trace and that the Romanian government has absolutely no information with regard to these children. The reason for this situation is that the private organizations which performed their activities in the area of international adoptions have trampled on the conventions they signed with the Romanian government and they have not sent even one post adoption report. As a consequence, there is nothing known about 1,153 children adopted between 1997 and 2001, and 175 adopted between 2001 and 2003 under the emergency ordinances (international adoptions being forbidden from Romania after 2001). The countries which have the most cases in this situation are U.S.A. (491) Italy (175) and Greece (151).

" THE CHILDREN ARE O.K.", BUT.....

The head of the Romanian office for Adoptions also made reference to post adoption reports from abroad which were inexact. For example, a post adoption report from Switzerland which was received indicated that the children were O.K. But the ROA learned that one of these children is no longer staying at the address mentioned. The child is supposed to be adopted by a different family. The child is now in the Swiss Child Protection System. It was also mentioned, that a child adopted by a family from Spain had ended up in the hospital after he was beaten by his adoptive parents. This situation occurred after the child had been previously beaten numerous times. However, the reports did not indicate any of this.

Positive reports were also sent in the case of the boy adopted by an American citizen William Peckenpaugh, who sexually abused the child for many years. The evaluation of this adoptive father had been done at least 8 times by the American authorities. The post adoption reports did not indicate any need for the intervention of American authorities. This situation was discovered after William Peckenpaugh returned a video camera to an electronics store. It was discovered in the camera's memory that he had recorded his deeds. He was later condemned to 30 years in prison.

THE ROA DEMANDS THE INVOLVEMENT OF THE FEDERAL AUTHORITIES FROM ABROAD

Theodora Bertzi announced that in May that the ROA had contacted the central authorities in the countries where private intermediary organizations were working with regards to international adoptions. She told them that these organizations have not respected the agreements which they had signed with the Romania government which required them to verify the situation of each child. She asked them to verify each case and also to recheck all the favorable reports which were inexact. Although some of these countries have begun to send information, the head of the ROA declared that in cases where things are not so good, the Romanian authorities cannot intervene to help these Romanian children because they have become citizens of their adoptive country, thus they fall under the legislation of those countries.

These declarations were made by the head of ROA because of the powerful lobbing pressure which was put on the Romanian government in order to re-open international adoptions of children from Romania.

Thirty three NGO's published a full page ad on June 12, in the Financial Times, which cost them 65,200 British pounds (approx. $120,000). This ad defamed the child protection system in Romania and demanded the re-opening of international adoptions. Baroness Emma Nicholson, along with the heads of ROA and NAPRC (Bertzi and Panait) replied to this ad with firm arguments. In a letter to the Financial Times, Mrs. Nicholson said, "Romania has forbidden international adoptions since 2001, because international adoptions lead to the trafficking of children: adoptive parents were seducted by adoption agencies who had no scruples." She said that the re-opening of international adoptions would be "madness". Panait and Bertzi also demanded that Romania be allowed to apply their current laws. They emphasized that "the corrupting effect" of international adoptions made by various NGO's who did their extremely profitable business of international adoptions of children by foreigners, also had an effect on the public life of Romania.