Response to Romania and Adoption Laws

A great response to Romania not changing their Adoption Laws. Submitted by a source working hard to open adoptions.

Please remind Mrs. Bertzi that the reason there are not enough children eligible for adoption in Romania to fullfill the requests of Romanians who want to adopt is due to the new legislation. Prior to the current legislation there were thousands of available children who had been declared legally abandoned and eligible for adoption. Sadly, their legal abandonment decrees were declared null and void in January of 2005 and they must go through the process of tracking biological relatives in attempt to place them - again, go to court for a legal abandonment hearing - again, and then go on a list of available children for adoption - again. Since Romania lacks enough social workers, juvenile judges, and funding to accomplish this, the abandoned children of Romania will continue to wait years to even be eligible for a permanent family. Meanwhile, the high rate of abandonment will continue, babies will continue to languish in hospitals, and the abandoned children who are older, disabled, or Roma (or all three) will rarely - if ever - be domestically adopted and find permanent families. And many social workers, who are now being paid 20 euros for every abandoned child they "reunite" with a biological family member, will do whatever it takes to place a child in situations of extreme neglect, abuse, and lack of interest of any biological family member - all to lower the statistics of abandoned children in state care. But as government officials have said in the past, "Why are you concerned about these children? They are worth nothing." Just 20 euros and the perceived price of admission to the European Union.

Romania will not change adoption rules

Romania is fighting all the internal pressure to open up adoptions.

President of the Office for Adoptions says Romania does not plan to allow international adoptions since the domestic demand is higher than the number of the children ready for adoption.

published in issue 3735 page 5 at 2006-08-02

BUCHAREST - The Romanian authorities remain firm on keeping the current legislation governing inter-country adoptions, Theodora Bertzi, President of the Romanian Office for Adoptions (ORA), stated yesterday, while expressing her doubt that a relaxation in the area of such adoptions would lead to a more flexible regime of obtaining visas for the US.

Referring to the adoption by the US Senate of a new resolution on the resuming of international adoptions by Romania on the very day when President Basescu left for the US on an official visit, Bertzi explained that the resolution was identical to the one passed in April this year by the House of Representatives, its signors asking for the amending of Law 273 (2004) on the regime of adoptions as well as the assessment of over 200 cases of Romanian children in connection with which the Romanian authorities had completed reports as early as March.

Moreover, the President of ORA explained that the foreign families whose applications could not be processed received their papers back together with information about the circumstances of the child.

The resolution urges the Romanian officials ‘to give priority to the best interest of the child’ and allow inter-country adoption not only by relatives of the child but also by families who wish to adopt children from Romania. The document expresses the position of the House of Representatives and is not legally binding’, added Bertzi.

“A sovereign state cannot be blackmailed in that way. We know that we will not change the legislation in the area,” stated Bertzi, reminding that for the first time President Basescu had adopted a very decisive attitude on that.

In fact, the ORA president stressed that the resolution as well as the entire lobby so far for the resumption of international adoptions had not been authored by the governments of the states in question, but by the various NGOs or members of parliament who paid huge amounts to have their press articles published, making reference to Romanian children and advocating the resumption of adoptions.

According to Theodora Bertzi, 30,000 Romanian children have been adopted internationally after 1990, around 35 per cent of them to the US, while only a few hundreds were adopted from Hungary or the Czech Republic. In Romania there are 2,200 families declared eligible for domestic adoptions and only 1,300 children with an open adoption procedure.

by Cornelia Nitoi

Excerpts from memo sent to President Bush and updated to include passage of Resolution

Summary:

In June of 2001, the country of Romania closed legal avenues for the adoption of unwanted children by loving parents from other countries. This change in policy was done in order to answer the charges made by Romania’s former EU rapporteur of corruption in the child welfare system and a need to review the currently child welfare legislation. Unproven accusations of adoptive parents selling their children’s organs and “baby buying” fueled the EU bureaucrats request for a total ban on inter-country adoption as a condition of Romania entering the European Union. Consequently, the new legislation which was signed into law in January 2005 bans all inter-country adoptions except in the case of biological grandparents, and has left 1,100 adoptions that were in progress suspended in permanent limbo. American (and European) families have now waited 3 - 6 years to adopt children whose adoptions were in progress prior to the ban.

Discussion:

An “Emergency Ordinance” (EO) was issued by the Romanian government in October of 2001 to allow previously suspended adoptions in progress to proceed and new adoptions to be registered, processed and finalized.

During the EO time period, the Romanian Adoption Committee arbitrarily selected which dossiers/children were allowed to be sent to the office of former Prime Minister Nastase, whose signature was required on each dossier to allow the case to proceed to court and finalization. The date of the initial filing/registration was not a consideration. Hence the reason many of the “pending/pipeline” adoptions have waited as long as 6 years for completion. The EO was suspended in February of 2004 at the request of the former EU rapporteur.

Parents – those who had already adopted from Romania and “pending parents” - and non-government organizations (NGO’s) have been working with their Congressmen and EU Parliamentarians for the last 2 years to persuade the Romanian government to at least transparently review, with a clear set of criteria, those adoptions that were “pending” and filed prior to January 1, 2005.

A committee – “The High Level Working Group” – subsequently reviewed the pending cases and notified the waiting parents of their status between November 2005 and March of 2006.

The initial and long-awaited “review” of the pending/pipeline Romanian adoptions is unacceptable. With the exception of biological grandparents, or those parents who have permanent residency in Romania, all of the cases were denied. The “High Level Working Group” that reviewed these dossiers was made up of individuals, suggested by former EU rapporteur Baroness Nicholson, who have publicly stated they are against inter-country adoption and were clearly biased.

The Romanian government also used contradictory arguments as to their denials stating that dossiers were reviewed under the criteria of the 2001 Emergency Ordinance (EO), and yet denied under the current child welfare laws which came into effect Jan. 1, 2005.

The Romanian government has stated these children did not meet the EO “exceptional criteria”. These denied cases represent disabled children and children over the age of 3. However, healthy babies and non-disabled children were finalized for adoption during the EO. In reading the EO there is no “exceptional criteria”.


The Romanian government states that there are less than 1,000 children available for adoption domestically – ironically the number of pending/pipeline cases (they have stated that some of the original 1,100 pending/pipeline children have already been domestically adopted or placed with their biological families). This is because all children who were declared legally abandoned prior to Jan. 1, 2005 (approximately 5,000) must now go back to court and be declared legally abandoned again in compliance with the new legislation, which voids their previous court documents. This number does not include children who have been abandoned since 2004. According to a UNICEF study issued in January of 2005, 9,000 children are abandoned each year in Romania and the numbers have not changed in 30 years. The Romanian government currently has not the funding or the professional staff to take these children’s cases to court. Additionally, in their attempts to appease select EU officials they have no interest in expanding their current statistics of abandoned children. It should be noted that Romanians rarely adopt Roma children (73% of abandoned children) or children over the age of 2. It is unheard of to adopt a disabled child.

We know that many of the pending/pipeline cases have not been domestically adopted, “reunited” with their birth families, or are living in foster care. We also have proof that currently Romanian social workers are being paid 20 Euros for every child in state care that can be placed with their biological family.

In December of 2005, an amendment to Romania’s EU Accession report was unanimously approved by EU Parliamentarians in which Romania was asked to allow these pending adoptions to be finalized. On July 6, 2006, 408 European Union Parliamentarians – including Romania’s current EU rapporteur and VP of the EU Parliament - signed Declaration 23, calling on Romania to allow these dossiers to be reviewed again and the children allowed inter-country adoption. The Romanian government can no longer use the excuse that their EU membership is at stake.

U.S. Senate Resolution 359 passed unanimously on July 27th, 2006. U.S. House Resolution 578, an identical Resolution, passed unanimously in April 2006. These Resolutions call on the government of Romania to allow the pending/pipeline adoptions to be reviewed again by an unbiased committee and proceed to finalization where appropriate.


Proposed Solution:

An unbiased committee should be set- up as soon as possible to review these pending/pipeline cases again, with a view to allowing adoptions to be finalized that meet transparent and clearly defined criteria. Pierre Moscovici, Romania’s current rapportuer and VP of Parliament, could designate select committee members and the criteria used to review these cases. Verifiable evidence (court documents) should be provided to those parents and their governments who were told their children were domestically adopted or returned to their biological families. In many cases, we have found this is not true.

Senate Resolution 359

GOVERNMENT OF ROMANIA'S BAN ON INTERCOUNTRY ADOPTIONS AND THE WELFARE OF ORPHANED OR ABANDONED CHILDREN IN ROMANIA -- (Senate - July 27, 2006)

[Page: S8397] GPO's
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Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 359.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the resolution by title.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A resolution (S. Res. 359) concerning the Government of Romania's ban on intercountry adoptions and the welfare of orphaned or abandoned children in Romania.
There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the resolution.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The resolution (S. Res. 359) was agreed to.
The preamble was agreed to.
The resolution, with its preamble, reads as follows:
S. Res. 359
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 citizens of the United States 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, citizens of the United States adopted more than 8,200 Romanian children, with a similar response from the citizens of 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 principal 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 the children of Romania, and all children, deserve to be raised in permanent families: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate--
(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 domestic 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.

Cotidianul - America wants Children with Romania

Cotidianul writes today about a resolution passed in the U.S. Congress regarding Romania's policy on international adoptions with an emphasis on asking the latter to relax the rules for foreigners who want to adopt Romanian children.

The day Basescu arrived in the States, the U.S. Senate adopted a resolution regarding the relaxing of the international adoption ban by Romania. The superior chamber of the U.S. Congress unanimously passed the resolution according to which the American authorities will ask the Romanian government to relax the international adoptions policy, almost four months after the House of Representatives voted an identical resolution. Moreover, the date the paper was signed, July 27, according to which the American senators reinforced the lobby for Romanian children, coincided with the arrival of Romanian President Traian Basescu in America for an official visit. The text of the two resolution papers maintains word by word that Romania still has major problems regarding the abandoned and institutionalized children that allegedly reaches a number that is considerably greater than the one of the children who are adopted nationally. As a consequence, congressmen want the modification of the Romanian legislation so that Romanian children are able to be internationally adopted, but they also want the conclusion of the analysis regarding pipeline cases (involving over 200 children). However, this request was met by Romania at the end of March. The text of the resolution states that the U.S. requests the European Union "not to impede the efforts of the Romanian government to place orphaned or abandoned children into permanent families, in a manner that agrees with Romania's obligations to the Hague Convention." Sources within the U.S. Congress told us last week in Washington that giving up visas before entering American territory will depend greatly, among other things, on the change of the international adoptions regime in Romania. Concretely, the above mentioned sources said that Americans clearly want international adoptions to be resumed in Romania.

Declaration 23

Below is an analysis of the signatures on Declaration 23 that was done for the US State Dept. and MEP allies.

Declaration 23

408 signed out of 732 MEPs: 55.7%. This was a tremendous accomplishment. As of July 9, 2006, this written declaration was one of only three declarations in 2006 that received enough signatures to be adopted. Twenty-one declarations lapsed for lack of the requisite number of signatures in 2006, and 32 were ongoing. Only one declaration received more signatures (422) than this declaration. In 2005 there were 83 attempted declarations. Only 7 were adopted, and 76 lapsed. Of those adopted, only one received more signatures (424) than 408. This means that in 2005-06, this declaration had the third-highest number of signatures out of a total of 107 declarations (not counting the ongoing declarations as of July 9).

PARTY GROUPS

All party groups except the GUE/NGL (Communists and far left) and the Independence and Democracy Group (euroskeptics) had 50% or more of their members sign. The lack of a majority of IND-DEM signatures can probably be explained by the reluctance of many IND-DEM MEPs to sign written declarations in general, because of their euroskepticism.

EPP/ED: 146 out of 263: 55.6%

PES: 112 out of 201: 55.7%

ALDE: 66 out of 89: 74.2%

Greens: 21 out of 42: 50%

GUE/NGL: 14 out of 41: 34.1%

Non-aligned: 24 out of 37: 64.9%

UEN: 19 out of 30: 63.3%

IND-DEM: 6 out of 29: 20.7%

NATIONALITIES:

In 14 out of 25 nationalities, more than a majority of MEPs signed (12 of the top 14 nationalities had 60% or more signatories). In 18 nationalities, 42% or more of MEPS signed. In only 3 nationalities, less than 1/3 signed. Of the 137 MEPs from the 8 former East Bloc member states, 80 (58.4%) signed.

France: 74 out of 78: 94.9%

Slovenia: 6 out of 7: 85.7%

Cyprus: 5 out of 6: 83.3%

Luxembourg: 5 out of 6: 83.3%

Italy: 64 out of 78: 82.1%

Spain: 42 out of 54: 77.8%

Greece: 18 out of 24: 75%

Estonia: 4 out of 6: 66.7%

Slovakia: 9 out of 14: 64.3%

Lithuania: 8 out of 13: 61.6%

Poland: 33 out of 54: 61.1%

Malta: 3 out of 5: 60%

Belgium: 14 out of 24: 58.3%

Latvia: 5 out of 9: 55.6%

Ireland: 6 out of 13: 46.2%

Hungary: 11 out of 24: 45.8%

Finland: 6 out of 14: 42.9%

Denmark: 6 out of 14: 42.9%

Portugal: 9 out of 24: 37.5%

Netherlands: 10 out of 27: 37%

Germany: 36 out of 99: 36.4%

United Kingdom: 26 out of 78: 33.3%

Czech Republic: 4 out of 24: 16.7%

Austria: 3 out of 18: 16.7%

Sweden: 1 out of 19: 5.3%

Other observations:

Of the 212 female MEPs, 118 (55.7%) signed -- exactly the same percentage as the total number of MEPs who signed.

Slovakia's high percentage of signatures is due to the Slovakian EPP (Anna Zaborska's delegation) -- all 8 signed.

Of the British MEPs who signed, 15 were EPP/ED (out of 27 British EPP/ED), 5 PES, 3 ALDE, 3 from other party groups.

Of the German MEPs who signed, 14 were EPP/ED (28.6% of the German EPP/ED delegation); 7 were PES (30.4% of German PES delegation). 6 of 7 German ALDE signed, and 7 of 13 German Greens (Hiltrud Breyer's delegation) signed.

Twelve of 15 Polish EPP/ED members signed (Jacek Saryusz-Wolski's delegation), and 6 of 10 Polish PES members (Siwiec's delegation); eight of 10 Polish non-aligned members signed (Giertych's delegation).

Five of 12 Portuguese PES members signed (Ana Gomes's delegation).

Four of the 6 Irish signatures were from Irish UEN MEPs (Brian Crowley's delegation).

Behind the Scenes Work for the Abandoned Children in Romania

This is from 7/28/06.

First, thanks to each of you who were able to get your Senator's and Representatives to sponsor the respective Resolutions and to those of you who also called them. Your phone calls, emails and faxes were invaluable in getting these passed. As you read, the Senate Resolution hit the floor last night for a vote and passed unanimously. Congratulations all! I relayed the news to our Romania Desk Officer to pass on to Ambassador Taubman - they were both heading over to the Romanian Embassy for a special event with President Basescu. I'd like to think that the Romanian government thinks our Senate intentionally scheduled this vote while P. Basescu was in town.

I got a call from our State Dept. at 9:00 on Wednesday night to tell me they were able to get a meeting scheduled with me and Ambassador Taubman yesterday, just prior to his meeting with President Bush and President Basescu. It's protocol that the American Ambassador brief the President minutes before he meets with the President/Prime Minister. I don't know if it was due to his busy schedule, or a fluke of fate, but I thought it was appropriate that I got to update him on the current situation with Romania's abandoned children/pending adoptions within minutes of the topic being discussed. (I say "minutes" as our meeting went over the time allotted and he truly had to rush off afterwards for his meeting at the White House). I'm awaiting clearance for a formal "debriefing" of the details, but I can tell you that I spoke with the State Dept. today and got confirmation that the subject was on the agenda and discussed in the meeting with Basescu. I can also tell you Taubman is supportive of our efforts, of the children and ICA in general, and is doing what he can. His staff has recently toured a few orphanages and hospitals and he's well aware of the issues and the discrimination of Roma. He told me that our problem still lies with the Prime Minister and the European Commission and that he felt that Romania would wait until their EU Accession/January 1st before they would allow another review of the dossiers and ICA. He also told me that our Embassy is aware of the lies being thrown out by the Romanian government, and have proof in some cases of said lies. They have also told the Romanian government they know they are being lied too. I told him of some still confidential EU initiatives and we discussed a few that we, as Americans, may be able to pull off. He also told me, no surprise, that "...from the top of the Romanian government to the bottom, they cannot understand why we are concerned about these children. 'Why do you care so much about them?' " All in all, it was a postive meeting. He also told me that VP Cheney brought up this topic at the Bi-laterial meeting in May and that President Basescu's response was "It was a bad promise." Meaning, he shouldn't have given it...I didn't ask what VP Cheney's reply was.

I then went to the Hill to call on a few Senators to request they push Senator Frisk to put the Resolution on the schedule yesterday. I started with Senator Brownback (Kansas and co-chair of the Helsinki Commission) and then as the day went on I saw him on 3 other occasions, each time getting in a few more "points". (I'm sure he now suspects I was stalking him as I saw him in 2 other buildings...) I met with Senator Lieberman's Deputy Press Secretary and senior foreign relations staffer, Senator Lugar's senior foreign relations staffer, Senator Dodd's senior foreign relations staffer, and stopped in to push the Resolution for inclusion in yesterday's schedule in the following offices: Durbin, Bunning, Obama, and Byrd. By the time I got to Sen. Lugar's office it was on the schedule to come up at the end of the day, but no one knew when "the end of the day" was "scheduled". In between I spoke to the CCAI and they were calling my cell phone and giving me updates throughout the afternoon too. Senator Lieberman's office was quite gracious. They supplied band-aids twice (I ended up with blisters on several toes - hot, hot day and lots of walking) and even gave me an intern to escort me around so that I could identify Senators and Representatives in the halls and approach them, and to take me to the Senate floor via the tram to both save time and see if the Resolution was up for a vote. I don't remember all of their names, but trust me, I spoke to at least another 10 as they were all in town. David-the-intern blew me away as he not only recognized innumerable Congressmen, he seemed to know everyone we encountered. He has also agreed to do some research work for us - I thought to ask if Sen. Lieberman had Lexus Nexis in his office - an expensive and invaluable online research service and one that I've been wanting to get my hands on for awhile now.

I also met with the Helsinki Commission Chief of Staff (COS). This meeting was crucial as Rep. Smith had a 5:00 meeting with President Basescu and Ambassador Ducaru to discuss the pending adoptions and suggested revision in the current child welfare legislation. I was able to read, edit and add on to the document they were planning on presenting to President Basescu. I missed the COS's phone call for the download on the meeting, but we will be speaking this weekend. You should know that there is a hearing scheduled for Sept. 13th on the issues of disabled children and their treatment and care (or lack thereof) in Romania.

MEP Breyer called while I was "lobbying". She is working with a few other MEPs on a few things that must remain confidential but will be revealed in September.

Around 5 I went to a reception for Congressmen and their families called "Taste of America" on the Hill. Various organizations representing other countries had tables sent up in the Capitol with traditional foods and drinks offered. The Congress of Romanian Americans (CORA) had a table too. I was able to meet up with the President of CORAand our ally, Armand Scala, and talk to him at length. I then escorted him to an introductory meeting of the Congressional Caucus on Romania, in which President Basescu was attending and Rep. Weldon and Ortiz are spearheading. (More on this in another e-mail). Adoptions was not on the agenda. Enroute back to the CORA table, I did happen to run into a Representative from Alabama and requested he put it on the agenda. (I'll look up his name as I don't remember it at the moment - a "new recruit".) I don't know if he was the one who brought up the subject at this meeting, but I was told today by our State Dept. today that "adoptions" came up in the meeting. As he wasn't in the meeting he couldn't tell me further details, so I'll let you know more after I speak to those who were.

Of course I couldn't leave the Hill without trying to make a few more contacts/converts, so while hailing a cab I introduced myself to 2 staffers also hailing cabs on the corner - the policy advisor for Rep. Deborah Price (who happens to be an adoptive parent) and the legislative assistant for Rep. Leach (who also supports ICA). They also let me take the first cab :)

More information and details to come in the future.