A EUROPARLIAMENTARIAN SNEAKS THROUGH ROMANIAN ORPHANAGES

Article translated from Adevarul Oct. 18, 2006

A EUROPARLIAMENTARIAN SNEAKS THROUGH ROMANIAN ORPHANAGES

By: Carmen Chihaia and Magda Crisan

A delegation of Europarliamentarians who came from Brussels to visit institutions that protect children changed their original scheduled visits twice, trying to catch Romanian authorities 'on the wrong foot'.

The most recent try was yesterday, when the delegation went unannounced to an orphanage in Prahova. Europarliamentarian Claire Gibault hadn't yet arrived in institutions in Arges and Brasov, stopping instead at an orphanage in Campina, where 32 minors are cared for. Local authorities in Prahova were told of the change in schedule only Monday evening (the evening before) after 11 p.m. The head of Romanian office for Adoptions, Theodora Bertzi, considers that Gibault's attitude is without transparency and respect with regard to the authorities in Romania.

A SCANDALOUS VISIT IN CONSTANTA ALSO

European Deputy, Claire Gibault, also tried Monday to take Romanian authorities by surprise, trying to sneak into an orphanage in Constanta. After she left, with a smirk on her lips, from officials and journalists from Constanta, she suspects the hosts showed her only the nice part of things, she turned around at the barrier, and asked the personnel of the orphanage to show her everything immediately. She went into the Pediatric section of the County Hospital, but turned around, finding out that she had gotten the wrong address: instead of Maternity, she had gotten lost in the sections of little children sick and undergoing treatment. In another visit to the Micul Rotterdam orphanage, the special conditions offered to over 60 orphans, instead of making her glad, made her run away.